2. pc-audio
  3. 1213463450

Jump in now or wait?

Very close to purchasing a Benchmark DAC1 usb to use pc as sole source. Music is saved in apple lossless w/error correction in Itunes. Is it worth buying now (will need to buy new as these units seem to be rarely available used) or is the pace of technology changing/new products coming to market such that I should wait 6 months or so? Have to believe a number of fellow agoners are wrestling with this same issue.

Relatedly, is the DAC1 going to get me sonically where a nice CD player would (thinking of used Ayre CX-7e).

Thanks for any input.
dokosan
herman
1,974 posts
 
Steve, I've never heard the mention of error correction on playback. Are you saying my computer might not be reading the hard drive correctly and needs error correction?
kennyt
1,226 posts
 
I currently have the DAC 1 PRE and can say it is a very nice unit and simple to set up and use.

Walter, I would suspect the DAC's in the AMR 777 to be a step up, and should be for the like seven times price difference!

The DAC 1 is a solid and very musical DAC with clear and extended highs that are not harsh. when compared to my Esoteric DV-50s, it didn't have quite the soundstage or air, but was very listenable to, and did a great job even with high bit rate MP3's.
audioengr
3,282 posts
 
Herman - no, the reads from the hard drive should be error-free. Its the spooling from memory out to the device that has no error correction.

Steve N.
dokosan OP
41 posts
 
Steve - Hmm. Thought I had this figured out. Will there be a problem going from pc using usb to DAC1 due to this memory spooling issue?

herman
1,974 posts
 
I still don't get it. I'm not saying you are wrong, but I've been involved with electronics and computers for a long time and this is news to me. Perhaps I don't understand what you mean but it seems to me that if computers generated errors reading from memory and transferring the data nothing would ever work.
More to discover