Benchmark DAC

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.

The same question could be asked about any number of products on Audiogon. It makes me laugh when people like Celtic66 say product A will "smoke" product B in something as subjective as musicality.

The same question could be asked about any number of products on Audiogon. It makes me laugh when people like Celtic66 say product A will "smoke" product B in something as subjective as musicality.

And there is your answer as to why. Audiophiles are selling the Benchmark DAC1 by the boatload, as pretty much any decent product will smoke the DAC1...

I will say I personally liked the DAC1 better than the Bel Canto DAC3. And that it did work well with a Musical Fidelity A308 integrated I had owned before (though that was with some "dark" speaker cables). I think the common theme with most digital products, including most DACs, is brightness or etch or glare or whatever. Some are more bright than others (i've owned four that I fed via an IMac or pc/laptop, so maybe the sources were at fault). Even the Havana was a bit bright until I fixed some other areas in my setup.