Rankings are my own based on my own preferences. Your rankings may be different. I believe I said something to that effect in the first post. Maybe I didn't.
I have heard DACs with minimum phase and linear phase filters. Some D-S DACs I have owned or borrowed for extended periods offered several filters. PWD2, Gamma2, Vega, LH, etc. (too many to recall.) In these cases, I've almost always preferred the linear phase filter. Smoother to my ears; however I still wouldn't say analog sounding or particularly smooth compared to R2R. The other ninjas in the evaluations preferred other filters. I'd say the filters are more a matter of "different" than better or analog.
Using your logic, the smoother "analog" sounding R2R DACs of yesteryear and Yggy would sound very digital because they have linear filter characteristics with both pre and post ringing. BTW, if you didn't know, most of the R2R DACs of yesterday also used cheap pre-canned filters.
Finally, the Audiolab DAC Optimal Transient filters do have pre and post ringing. So there goes your theory. I'd be happy to provide measurements for you if you don't believe me. Don't get bamboozled by their marketing literature. It's impossible to not have any kind of ringing with filters.
Sorry to say it, but you don't know what you are talking about.
I also prefer linea phase filters - I'm not sure if it's that they sound smoother, but IME more coherent as the minimum phase filters I have been playing with seem to throw out really weird imaging I couldn't live with.
I have been doing this from software using HQPlayer which has an excellent range of filters, dither options, and IMO sounds more transparent than any other software for some reason. My second preference after HQPlayer would be JRiver, with Foobar in last (I found the WASAPI plugin the least objectionable and digital sounding)
I find that I generally prefer to oversample and music by at least 2 x as this seems to reduce some of the nervousness and grain on some poorer recordings, even hi-res formats. I suspect this is leveraging some kind of coloration and there is slight time domain blurring from the filter I suspect but is sounds more like music.
I also wonder how much difference there is between noise filtering in both the digital inputs, sensitivty of DAC chip to noise, as well as the analog output sections. The Sabre DAC I use shows dramatic differences in noise levels corresponding to changes made to the computer. I really am struggling to adjust to using a switching PSU after getting used to the linear powered computer, but I will have to as I have damaged the linear supply by overloading.
It is one of those things - at first it took my brain a while to get used to lower noise from the digital input - my thoughts were the sound was too laid back, but after a while either burn in took place, or I began to realise that the linear supply was more transparent and detailed, less blurred, less noisy, such that even very good switching supply was unlistenable.
I suspect maybe something similar happens with R2R DAC's once they are on a good enough technicalities footing, even very good delta sigma switching DAC's are difficult to listen to. Previously I had little to complain about in my system using the switching ATX supply, I think the brain becomes used to the noise and just ignores it as much as possible.
BUT I still have to figure out what exactly is causing the noise in Sigma Delta, and why it is absent from Multibit. Especially why Sabre, which sets out to eliminate the problem areas of delta sigma sets multibit fans off so badly given how low level the noise producted by the chip itself is, at least with most of the measurements I have seen, including those on ESS white papers. There are some
very high end, cost no object DAC's which use Sabre chips, often in multiples, presumably to try and filter out what remaining artefacts are created by the chip, and probably not just using the reference design from ESS.
I have a suspicion that part of the problem with Sabre is that the noise levels are too
low, and that because of this, other noise from the digital inputs, power supply etc are easily heard, while other DACs which more noise in the audio band do a better job of covering up these noise sources. This is just my own daydream and not something have tested or formulated from heaps of listening experience so take with grain of salt.
The other though I have had is that I would not mind NOS DAC with high bandwidth digital input, as when using a computer, there is heaps of unused processing power that can be used to implement very good digital filters. This would reduce costs for a lot of DAC's as they can forgo using complex filters in high end FPGA chips, and would not need the space in the chasis etc. Maybe it is better to do some of these things near the DAC chip, but FPGA circuits especially powerful ones also product electrical noise AFAIK.