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

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

I have owned many high end cdp, transport/dac combo's (wadia 860se w/GNSC statement mod, AAero, Meitner combo/ one box and seperates, Burmester 979/980, Resolution Opus 21 w/GNSC mod, to name some)...all excellent. I am living very happily with a PC based system run into a benchmark dac 1 with reflection audio mods. the mods run about $900 so they effectively double the price of the stock unit but the quality is superb. I have no connection with refelection but this is the route that worked for me.

I have more favorable feeling about the Benchmark than some of the comments above, which just underscores how much our individual preferences and systems vary. I think it's a terrific unit and, in answer to your original question, probably beats all older top-of-the-line DACs. Lots of time has passed and my system has changed a lot as well, but I would expect to prefer the Benchmark over several earlier units I had, including the Levinson No. 39, the Dodson 217 upgraded, and a heavily modified Sony SCD 777ES.

The treble on the Benchmark is definitely not from the Cardas school, but I don't feel it is incorrect. Last night, I compared mine to an Audio Note DAC1 Signature, which is a NOS, filterless, tube design. The AN is definitely sweeter and a bit softer on top, but what surprised me was that the two units sounded more alike than I would have expected.