I was brushing my teeth this morning when I noticed the tissue box on the counter. The big feature, printed in confident green letters: Plant-Based.

I stood there for a moment. Isn't all tissue plant-based? Has paper not always come from trees?

This is what happens when marketing runs out of real things to say. The feature isn't a feature. It's a word dressed up to look like one.

We run into the same thing in audio. A product that leads with its chip count, its THD figure to six decimal places, or its gold-plated connectors—before it's told you a single thing about what it does to the music.

A real feature is something the designer lost sleep over. A choice, a tradeoff, a conviction that required real work and real listening. Something that changes what you hear when you're sitting in the chair.

That's the question worth asking about any piece of gear. Not what it measures or what it's made of—but what did the people who built it actually believe? What were they chasing?

A tissue box made from trees tells you nothing.

A DAC built by engineers who couldn't leave the room until the musicians felt present—that tells you everything.