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One thing to note is..of all the amps in this video, the only one that has active (and adjustable) audio processing is the E5 (which the G5 also has since it has the same chipset found in our internal audio cards).
He called the "SBX" switch a "bass boost" which is actually completely incorrect. The SBX switch turns off and on the various effects that have been selected to be active. So when you press that button you turn off and on whatever is active.
If the user / reviewer really wanted to accurately test the device they could have gone in via direct mode or kept the SBX button OFF (to bypass the hardware processing effects), OR the could have disabled the Crystalizer / Virtual Surround / Normalizationor any of the other SBX processing features available in the E5 and JUST enabled SBX bass and had a completely different experience just like thousands of people who've purchased here on Massdrop have.
A note on the SBX bass as well since the reviewer was mentioning distortion. SBX bass is not a simple EQ boost. It actually creates harmonics in the upper range frequencies that your brain then fills in the gaps for. It was designed to make small speakers (like stereo drivers) sound loud without distortion. It does this by creating those harmonic frequencies that your brain is hardwired to hear and assumes that if it is hearing those upper range frequencies it MUST be hearing lower range ones as well. In short, SBX Bass doesn't create distortion because it's not moving more air or creating more movement of the driver all of that is happening in the upper range frequencies.
The E5 isn't just an Apple (like the other dacs in that review were), it's an Apple, and an Orange, and a Banana and a Lime and maybe even a Peach if you want it to be. So I could see how having everything enabled when simply trying to establish a critical listening sound signature could become quickly overwhelming and probably sound terrible ESPECIALLY if you are putting it up against AMPs / DACS with one capability. Critical listening through an established codec with no processing power at all.