No, that is not my premise at all. Please stop reading things into what I am saying that I am not saying. For example, I am saying that I think Jitter measurements COULD (if interpreted correctly) give insight into sound quality. So could distortion measurements (which for digital are a mix of digital artifacts and analog output stage distortions)...but again it comes down to how to interpret them. Just looking at raw plots and saying you can see how one will sound better than another is not the way.
For amplifiers (or more generally analog electronics), there has been more research into the correlation of preference to measurement. STarting way back with the BBC, D.E.L Shorter was trying to correlate the harmonic distortion with perceived sound quality. He came up with a relatively simplistic metric. That metric was a good start but incomplete. More recently Earl Geddes and Daniel Cheever both came up with metrics that take into account the nature of distotion and the nature of how we hear. Cheever, for example, found that our sensitivity is level dependent so his metric takes this and things like masking into account. You might be interested to know that Geddes actually found that the correlation with THD and IMD with sound quality was essentially zero but in fact was slightly negative! It just demonstrated that bulk numbers of distortion do not at all tell the story and in fact mislead. The nature of the distortion is far more important than the quantity of distortion...I suspect that this will be doubly true with digital. This is, to a large extent, why I think there are many people who think a properly implemented Philips TD1541 triple crown 16 bit ladder chip is still SOTA.
For me, a good analogy is with digital cameras. I was shopping once for one for my wife. Many of them had 12, 15 or even 20 million Mpixels. Then I found a Nikon, bottom of the range for SLR cameras, for about the same price as some of these others (which were more lifestyle cameras) that had "only" 6Mp. I asked the sales guy why this camera with far less Mp and almost no features was the same or more expensive. He simply replied "Becuase it takes really good pictures". So I bought it and he was absolutely correct. It took phenomenal pictures and that was all down to other factors than the number of Mp. Digging deeper, it was clear that the superior lens and the NATURE of the detector (it was a proper CCD and not a cheaper CMOS that is a lot noisier) made up for whatever limited pixels it might have.
To date, I have not seen anyone try to tackle correlation of measurements and sound quality of digital. Perhaps because digital processes and distortions are difficult to understand (like what effect does a filter that PRE-rings have on sound? What is pre-ringing in the real world? Obviously nothing in nature rings before the inital sound that make the ringing) and they are wholly unnatural and not found in our evolutionary past. It's even worse than the already unnatural harmonic distortion patterns made by most amps. Digital combines strange unnatural distortion types with the usual suspects in analog electronics. This makes unraveling the puzzle very complicated.
This is why everyone touting "perfect" measurements lead to the best sound should be even more careful about such proclamations than those who in previous decades claimed this about analog electronics, because the correlation is currently not at all established. It is also why your claim that if the waveform doesn't mean anything then none of the measurements do. You couldn't possibly know this first of all and there are a lot of other things that could be causing it rather than such a macro measurement like waverform profile. You should probably stop talking to engineers. They know how to design the stuff but very few of them know what they are trying to design to...so they design to achieve lowest distortion, jitter etc. without thinkng about how they get there. Scientific research on the correlation of sound to measurement should be the guide but if followed leads a lot of engineers into an uncomfortable and vague space where they can't just engineer to the lowest of everything like they can with a RADAR. Engineering to a nebulous "human preference" is in many ways a lot tougher.
Adding to all this, I'm seeing problems as measurements are invariably being taken in isolation, plus are often unspecific, e.g. while I have no doubt measuring analogue waveform reconstruction is relevant (after all, it's what a DAC does or is supposed to do, convert into analogue), it's merely one step towards proof that a converter that outputs perfect sine waves will accurately reconstruct complex waveforms (e.g. music).
My father used to work in a photo shop for several years, by the way, so I know what he'd tell you in reply to your story on digital cameras - that the camera that took better pics and cost more in all likelihood had a better lens. Basically the same type of argumentation that the Yggy users above pointed to, that the 20-bit or 24-bit (whatnot) resolution shouldn't be considered the bottleneck when e.g. the total system noise floor precludes the reproduction of 24-bit resolution.
The part I happen to find problematic in discussions like this (e.g. you mention THD and IMD) is that someone invariably hastens to add that human beings can't hear the difference anyway, pointing to studies whose results are ultimately based on negative evidence. Logically speaking, the absence of evidence isn't proof (I'm not religious, but you get the gist). The resulting "can't be" answer we audiophiles invariably get from engineering geeks isn't just lame, it's unscientific, and only points to a lack of intellectual curiosity.
As to engineering a product to human preference, I'm reminded of what a dear friend of mine who is a Federal Chef who teaches further education to junior chefs says about cooking: one is better off and bound to live a happier life cooking something one likes, crossing one's fingers that others will like it, too.
I have no doubt that is what the designers of the DACs we've discussed here lately do or are trying to do, with the possible exception of a Daniel Weiss, who scoffed at me once when I mentioned listening to one's own product - he was adamant about the objective nature of measurements, in short, he's convinced his products must sound good because they measure well, I got the impression he never listens to his products. It's not surprising to me that his best products are for professional studio applications, e.g. D/D converters, conversion software etc., all safely in the digital domain. His consumer products, I'd prefer to leave it at it when I don't have anything positive to say, as the bashing of products is a type of attitude I already find difficult to tolerate in discussion forums such as this.
More importantly, the existence of such rare birds in the audio business isn't proof engineers are all nerds or deaf or both, and even if they were, aren't employed where they contribute to the excellence of a product, being led by someone who has a philosophy and does listen. Without engineers, we'd not be here discussing audiophile products. The trap audiophiles fall into is really twofold: not everyone who listens builds great products (same as not everyone with taste buds is a great cook). We may not agree at which end of the spectrum more snake oil is being sold, but personally, I have just as much or little confidence in a designer who makes it a point to inform his clientele he listens as in one who says he measures - I let
my ears decide what I like or don't like.
Greetings from Switzerland, David.