Benchmark Dac3

Hi gdhal,

I just completed a shootout of three good dacs: Hegel HD-12, Exogal Comet Plus, and ModWright Elyse ($7K). The difference in the sound character of the three is dramatic. Every DAC I have heard has a pervasive and unique sound character. How someone could fail to discern the audible differences between DACs from different manufacturers is beyond me. I’ll just leave that thought there for your consideration in judging the quality of advice you receive.

My experience is that a great combination of preamp/amp/speaker will accurately reproduce the sound character of the source, yet careful matching of source to the foundation equipment can accentuate positive synergies and/or moderate imperfect tendencies of either or both with proper matching. To the contrary, placing a source component with a foundation system that strongly shares the same tendencies, however slight, toward brightness, forwardness, wooliness, or other undesirable sonic characteristics can make for a very unpleasant situation over time.

gdhal, what is the existing sound character of your system? What do you wish to accentuate and what do you wish it to do better? What do trustworthy owners and reviewers with systems of similar sound character to yours say is the sound character of those two dacs and what do they say that each does well and not as well? Which one’s unique sound character will best synergize with your system without accentuating undesirable tendencies of your existing system?

I realize these things are the nature of your question, but maybe the above thoughts can be clarify your journey somewhat.

Dave

Frankly, gdhal, your concerns about ModWright mods to your 205 are unfounded. Turnaround time is a couple weeks, workmanship is first rate, and Dan stands behind his work. Dan’s mod designs promote slow aging of the tubes, so even that is of minimal concern.

If your main goal is to eliminate the digital sound character (more than likely also being completely SS is a contributor) of your system, there is likely no better solution as the tube output section and tube power supply included in the mod will get that done and replace it with a natural, sumptuous, and extremely involving sound that you may not have yet even imagined.

No matter how good my other digital front end is now or may get, my MW5400ES will remain my digital source of choice when I wish to simply experience music.

BTW, if you decide to stay with an external DAC approach, the MW Elyse I just spent time with as a loaner from a friend would be a top choice IMO. Among the best build quality of any component I have had in my system and the sound quality is surreal. Great deals to be found for mint used ones right now.

Dave

If that is true (ahem...) and all "recent" DACs sound pretty much the same, then buy the cheapest one.

Perhaps a hearing test is in order...

Dave 

Excellent advice from the Benchmark rep re: the greater importance of accompanying digital and analog circuitry, minimization of noise, robustness of power supply and quality of AC filtering, vibration damping, etc on sound quality than the relatively small specification differences between two great DAC chips, R2R, FPGA, etc. on a test bench.

Dave