Benchmark DAC

They are everywhere. They are cheap. They are good. No surprise really. People try them and then try something else without breaking the piggy bank. They aren't going to solve a room acoustics, a speaker, aesthetics, sound flavor or an amplifier problem though. People buy and sell for many reasons - some may even prefer distortion over clean sound (why else are there CD loudness wars). They are great tool to clean up any old jittery digital (they claim to be able to clean up jitter down to 1 HZ which few designs can achieve)

The DAC1 does a fantastic job of cleaning up jitter and will put a smile on your face for a day or two. Then you may realize it's bright (or that it exposes the rest of your system as being bright), or just shows you that your music collection may have some awful recordings. I had one for 10 months and tried it on no less than 3 different amps, eventually sold it. That said, a lot of people love its sound. You can always try it and sell it if it's not for you (I sold mine in a day, literally, though I lost a few hundred as I bought it new).

The Benchmark DAC is easy to set up. It's a bargain used and even new seems a good buy. In fact, I'd love to find good one on Audiogon but, after a recent glut of them, they seem to be in short supply now. I owned one for a good while and, as is the way in this strange hobby, sold it in order to try something new and different. I have not heard anything since that I prefer to the Benchmark, although, if memory serves, the Cambridge 840 CD player might be its match. I liked the Benchmark better than two CD players I owned, a Rega Apollo and a Naim CD5i. The Benchmark does not smooth over rough edges or add midbass warmth -- it seems, to my ears, both neutral and engaging, clear but not bright. It won't do wonders for a lousy recording, but that's no fault of the DAC. I liked it. I miss it!

Benchmark is fairly detailed, but a decent NOS dac will smoke it for overall musicality delivering better vocals, acoustic piano while matching its detail. Head to Head with an Audiosector/Audio Zone for example it's no contest.

I agree with Celtic66, as a NOS DAC is what I eventually ended up with (an MHDT Havana). You'll need to make sure it gets a clean digital signal(low jitter), as I believe most NOS DACs don't have the capability to deal with jitter like the Benchmark DAC1.