Has anyone try the Benchmark DAC1 Preamp?

Amfbius there made some very solid points and agree with his conventional wisdom as well.

I have the Cary SLP98 which does do a wonderful job driving my amps.

It was for kicks that I actually try my DAC1 directly driving a pair of ASL 845 SET amps to my innersounds. I was delightfully surprise the outcome. The DAC1 gave more detail and immediacy to the sound and the big 845 tubes of the SET amp still allow the music to have body enough.

This experiment has lasted a couple of weeks now and now I have my Cary SLP driving my nuforce amps to warm those up with my vmps speakers.

So when I saw Benchmark actually is making a Pre-amp DAC, I'm hoping it's more than just a DAC with a volume control. Hopefully would do a better job as a preamp than the DAC1. That's why I started this post to see if anyone else has experimented.

I have been impress with how the DAC1 mix so well with my SET amp...

I have not tried the new dac1 preamp but I do use my benchmark dac1 to control the volumne. I have a adcom 5 disk cd player I use as a transport and the dac1 to my pass labs aleph 3 and my velodyne hgs12 subwoofer. I have totem model 1 for my for monitors. The sound is incredible! a very simple 2 channel setup. I do not need anything else, I only listen to xrcd and cd's. mostly jazz and clasical and guitar and a little rock. I have a music/ office room. the dac1 preamp will be more flexible when having different components but I love my dac1, I also have done the cone mods to the dac1

I've had the DAC-1 Pre for a couple of weeks now and IMHO it sounds excellent. Previously I had the regular DAC1 and either ran it straight to my power amp, or through my Bryston BP25. The DAC 1 Pre sounds better than either of those combinations. Needless to say, my BP25 will be on the market shortly.

Cldinsmore, was your DAC1 the DAC1USB?

I asked BenchMark, the difference between DAC1USB and DAC1PRE, other than the extra input, is the premium connectors and more use of LM4562.

Since I don't need the extra analog input, I was thinking that the DAC1USB might be all I need.

No. Mine did not have USB.