I liked it myself at the time…we’re talking on a high demand level. No gear ever reviewed is anywhere near „unlistenability“, not even hard to listen to, and this is definitely not. And its strength definitely is its balance in a setup where you place an under 1k phono amp or in a slightly bright or dry setup imo.
I just say that (except the high praise at the end) you probably won’t read much „worse“ reviews in terms of naming shortcomings than here. Certainly this is still a great review.
Gear with such limitations but no strengths isn’t reviewed. I heard this multiple times from reviewers…if they think a gear sounds weak generally, they don’t review it. Not exactly like that, but quite similar with music reviews. If the one editor doesn’t like a CD, another one reviews it who does (with exceptions).
Reviewers and manufacturers/distributors are symbiotic.
So this review is not bad, it’s „bad“ 