well its always hard to convey personality on a forum board, and ya'll are gonna bring your own judgements in as well, but ill just say that I'm intentionally bringing a bit of theatrics to this amp "showdown" simply because its entertaining for me to do so. There is not much more to it than that. I'm a playful person.
As far as the actual review process goes, im simply stating what I hear, which to the best of my ability i feel i have done pretty well so far. Of course im excited about getting new gear especially when it has a reputation for being good, but again, the review process is the review process - a seperate animal - FWIW the schiit asgard also had a lot of hype coming in. maybe not from me because i didnt have the level of understanding that other people did about its inner workings, but it was new, it had quite a fanfare, and i gave it a fair review IMO. I certainly would have preferred that it sounded better than the ef5 because it would have saved me some money - but it didnt, so i didnt let my preference color the review.
lucky for me all the differences that have been present in these various amps have been obvious enough to where i dont think i could go wrong.
beyond all that - you'll either trust me or you wont... but i suggest you take my fanfare with a grain of salt.