Benchmark VS older ultrahigh end dac's in these...

I will second Marco's experiences with the Benchmark - have also tried it twice (two years apart, two different systems) and have returned it both times, for the same reason - the strident and ultimately fatiguing high end.
I am currently demoing the PS Audio Dac III which appears to have all of the Benchmark's fine detail with none of the high end issues. In fact, just a week in, I am very impressed with this unit, and for under a grand!
In comparison with my older MSB Full Nelson and PS Audio DACs, the new PS Audio (and even the Benchmark) are in another league - the older DACs sound slow and veiled, and lack the transparency of the newer units.
Good luck!
james

Well thanks and I hope I get more of these responses, its a tricky call for sure. I had this non USB version once and the detail was good, but maybe not for the best. Ended up selling it off since it was not for me. I tried severl other newer dacs as well some with Anagram Tech involved and I still liked a few of the older dacs, to name a few, the Original Goldmund (which is still brutal in price compared to some of the newer stuff), Meridian 563 and the original Micromega DAC1 , one of my favourites, very musical and warm sounding with sufficient detail. So what do I now?
Hmmmmmm keep enjoying my music till something comes up that impresses me. Anyone made a comparison with the Musical Fidelity A3.24? curious cause this was actually not too bad a dac to my ears.

Give a Monarchy M24, or NM24 a listen...I have one, and it's a nice sounding DAC. It replaced an old, but upgraded Counterpoint DAC that I liked a lot.

Dave

Timely post; just last night I compared my Benchmark USB from my office system to my Meitner DCC2 (USB into Empirical Audio Turbo-2 into DCC2). Granted, these DACs are priced in different categories, but the sounds were also in different categories. Frankly, the Benchmark sounded bad. Very dry, not much detail, low end frequency information was simply missing. I'll probably return it during the 30 day return period. If you're looking for a used DAC, I recommend a DCC2. I see one on the gon for $4K obo. Just for reference, I've also heard DACs from Esoteric, DCS, and MBL in my system in the past, and the Benchmark could not compete IMO, but perhaps they don't plan to at their price point.

There are many good DACs available in the market. In my opinion, most of them uses same chips for their input controls to correct jitter and other anormallies...and more chips for their output stages. The other trend lack of consideration for good componet layouts in these DACs, again especially on the output stage that causes dry and not engaging sound, IMO.

I ran into April Music DA100 almost a year ago. It had an USB input which they implemented more than three years ago (unlike Benchmark's claim that they are the first) but the USB input wasn't the main reason why I bought one. It came to me with a recommendation from a record producer who had tried just about all DACs available in the market and decided the DA100 was his choice.

DA100 uses all discrete components and it is layed out beatifully. To my ears, DA100 is the best performing DAC after many that went through my system in recent years including the dCS to Benchmark.

The DA100 at $695 is built like $2000 DAC. This is the problem for April Music. High cost of manufacturing and dropping US Dollars that let them little or no margins to promot the DAC in US through a normal distribution channel. They are only selling via Internet directly.

Marco, I will let you try my DA100 next week while I am out of town. It will be good to hear your unbiased option on DA100.

Ki