The Musician Draco could be a great candidate...
https://aoshida-audio.com/products/musician-draco-r2r-decoder
https://aoshida-audio.com/products/musician-draco-r2r-decoder
Alternate to Benchmark Dac 1?
The Musician Draco could be a great candidate... https://aoshida-audio.com/products/musician-draco-r2r-decoder |
The Benchmark DAC2 or 3 is much better than the DAC1. I have owned all 3. None of them are warm but the 2 and 3 are not fatiguing and much better DAC's. I have the DAC3 now. A really great DAC that is a bit warm is the Gustard X26 Pro. It costs $1500 and is excellent. Do not let that price make you think is cannot compete with $5K DACs. A really amazing bargain. I use the DAC23B and Gustard in the same system. A very neutral DAC that is like the DAC3 but cheaper is the Topping D90se. I like the DAC3 for sound (by a bit) and features (by a lot) but the Topping is 1/2 the price and will not add anything to the sound with uber detail. Also non-fatiguing. |
@kijanki I have not owned a dac other than the Schiit Modi 3+ for a few weeks and a dragonfly for my iPhone for about a year. I do not have much experience with dacs. The dragonfly makes Tidal sound great. Especially with MQA over Grado SR 80 headphones. I don't know which camp I am in. The NHT speakers are very clear with a slight harshness in upper midrange every once in a while. Not much though. Enough that I wondered if a dac with some coloration would not be good for this particular set up. I read that Benchmark does not believe there is a big difference between their models, but users seem to think so. Maybe that's why I could pick up the DAC 1 so cheap. The 2 and 3 are out of my price range. Do you have any experience with the Bifrost 2? Thank you for replying. |
@severncreek No, I don't. I would save for used DAC2 or DAC3. Benchmark is high tech company, that you cannot go wrong with. As for the camp - I've tried to apply my engineering background to make sense of electrical principles behind good audio reception, until I finally realized that audio is like a woman - supposed to be loved, not understood. There is no right or wrong. |
I see that is an R2R dac. I have heard they have different kind of sound. Have you heard the Musician Draco?Well, you said you were looking for something different and with some warmth or character. To me, the DAC 1 is the extreme embodiment of the delta sigma DAC signature, and R2R is pretty much the antithesis of that sound so seemed like a good option given what you’re looking for. The Draco is the cheapest well-implemented R2R DAC that I’m aware of and lies just north of your price target. I haven’t heard it, but Musician’s DACs are getting very positive reviews so seems like a good bet. In any event, it’ll almost certainly sound quite different from the DAC 1. FWIW. |