Peachtree DAC iT vs. Benchmark's DAC1

I owned both a Peahtree Nova and Benchmark DAC1-HDR. There is no comparison, the Benchmark was better in every way. Not to mention the volume control and build quality are much better on the Benchmark.

If you want a more detailed answer let me know. I am typing on my phone right now and need to keep it short.

The jitter of the master clock merely represents a lower bound, not the actual sampling jitter of the DAC.

What Stereophile measured on the DAC1 is the sampling jitter, measured at the analog output of the DAC, which is what ultimately matters to the sonic quality.

The analog output takes into account everything a DAC from keeping synchronized with the audio input all along the chain until the final analog output.

The DAC1 measured analog output jitter at 157 psecs is regarded as inaudible, however, until someone measures the Peachtree DACiT or iDac at the analog out then it is an unknown - it may be equivalently inaudible or worse.

See, I figured that it was a measurement stunt.

I too have owned the Nova and the Benchmark. I greatly preferred the Nova (though only it's DAC section, the amplifier is not very good at all). I completely agree with the build quality comment, the Nova was very cheaply built, where as the Benchmark was particularly well built considering it's price point. To my ears, the Nova pulled the same level of detail as the Benchmark, but did it in a far more musical way.

I have also owned the Eastern Electric Minimax DAC, I prefer this DAC to everything else I have heard, though I had reliability problems with 2 units and ended up returning them both.

My DACiT should be here by the end of the week, I am curious to see how it can compare to the Eastern Electric's sound, given that it uses the cheaper, less sophisticated Sabre 9022 instead of the Sabre 9018. Should be interesting.

No measurement stunt, that is why we specify the master clock measurement which is an industry standard measurement. Jitter measurements are typically higher out of the analog output but can also vary depending on what cables you use, what tester you use, how stable is your power supply, etc. We use a very sophisticated Wavecrest to measure jitter. JA uses either a Miller or on loan Audio Precision analyzer, the AP being the better of the two but the Wavecrest is best of all and very $$$. JA measured the iDecco, a $999 integrated amp/dac, for Art Dudley's review and found the analog output when using SPDIF in to measure less than 200ps of jitter, the digital iPod dock to measure a "low 310ps", and the USB input 260ps of jitter. I hope this info helps.

Thanks for the clarification, Jonderda!

Mrovnak,

I will not disagree with you about your comment. I used the Nova as a preamp/dac and the iffy volume control drove me nuts. I never tried it as a stand alone DAC because I was looking for a pre with a DAC at the time.