I've found most reviews to be fairly accurate in their assessment of the A8. Really good streamer, decent DAC, excellent build and functionality. It's a really solid, tidy bit of kit that does what it's supposed to.
I moved mine on; I didn't see the value in keeping a device whose DAC I wasn't using. Used the money to get a dedicated streamer, no DAC, for the same dough which should offer better performance.
On reviewers, if folk start finding the gear doesn't match the reviews then those reviewers will likely find they start getting less views. There are definitely one or two hype merchants who I now watch less and/or pinch of salt their feedback. Equally there are a few whose opinions I trust after buying based on their reviews and the gear met expectations.
So much better than 15 years ago and forums/YouTube weren't as popular, just relying on What Hi-Fi's reviews which seem to spend 17 paragraphs of waffle and 1 paragraph of actually trying to describe how it actually sounds by some anonymous author (and why are the Aussie WHF reviews so much better than the UK ones?)