There's not really a lot of things to test really,
- Drivers to include/exclude - This is a no brainer, if you use NVMe, you gotta have have those drivers, ditto for network, USB and audio devices)
- Drivers to be installed in kernel, or as a module (kmod) - This has subtle differences. But I am unsure what sounds better
- Various timer, schedulers
- Kernel versions - big kettle of fish. Newer versions will have better support and stability. But may not sound as good
- RT patches - Probably related to 4.
Still looking to upgrade my hardware. I'm looking for something that accepts a USB card, and also SFP (optical does make the sound cleaner), and small enough to be powered by a LPS. We need an audiophile hardware maker to make a USB + SFP card that works on PCI-e x2 (or x4)... Making it one slot will make things easier, otherwise I have to buy breakout boards and that's not always reliable.
But yeah, kernel builder is kind of pointless if I still cannot successfully make Snakeoil easily installable for the masses.