Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I've always thought that Brita or Pur are the pioneers of pitcher type water filtration brands. However, after getting into hydroponics and really understanding water quality, I honestly don't think that Brita is that great at all. The standard measurement of effectiveness of a filter is testing the TDS or Total Dissolved Solids in the output water. I live in Washington, DC and our TDS comes out of the tap at roughly 210 ppm. (the aim for purest water would be 0 ppm). After running it through thousands of Brita filters all my life, I'm realizing that it only filters a little little bit of impurities. I recently got a laboratory grade calibrated Electric Conductivity (EC) meter which in essence is the measurement for total dissolved solids. In North America, this value is either multiplied by 700 or 500 to get the value in ppm. I am 100% sure of the accuracy of my new meter. Measuring the output water from Brita, I get a reading of only 198 ppm. So, all it filtered out was about 10 ppm??? That is hardly filtering. That is running water through a cheese cloth!!! How can I be so sure I'm right? Well, let's use another water filter, namely, ZeroWater Replacement Filter for Pitchers, 2-Pack - ZR-017, the water filters out SUPER SLOW in this one, but the output water actually measures at ZERO ppm!!! I've used my meter on distilled water bought from the store and it's also 0 ppm. I've used my meter on a Reverse Osmosis system my friend has and the output water also reads 0 ppm. I seriously think that all the rave of "My water tastes so good" etc.... is purely anecdotal and probably a placebo effect. I am actually very very disappointing that Brita has governed the market for SUCH A LONG TIME, living on ignorant folks (myself including), anecdotal evidence.