I found this at Gearslutz:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yannick
If by " purely natural effortless dimension " you mean you start listening to the beginning of one track to check how it sounds, and you end up listening through the entire album (something I hadn't done anymore for about 10-15 years), then yes, that is how good the DAC2 HGC is.
If the Mytek does not do that, it is not too bad I didn't have it for the roundup. At that time I thought there was no Belgian distributor (in fact there isn't really one), so no practical way to get the unit in the studio.
The DAC2 made my jaw drop to the floor (through my desk) - several times.
On really good source material it is scary how transparant it is. I would almost dare to say the piece of wire to the Bryston 3Bsst risks having more sound than the dac itself.
Re: I got a Benchmark DAC2 on test next to my Mytek DSD DAC, both connected directly into a IJ Research monitor control with passive attenuation (relays). Love the sound of the Mytek and it definitely has the "get stuck listening to music because it sounds so good"-effect.
But switching back and fourth it's quite audible that the DAC2 is even more transparent. The mid-range is more dynamic, transients are more defined, reverb tails even more exposed, vocals sound even more natural.
One thing that the Mytek does is to inflate the low-end a little bit, making the sound more "warm", and the mid-range has a velvet kind of niceness (for lack of better description) which is nice if you're just listening to music. But for mixing and mastering, I've found it a bit annoying because it is still a colouring of the sound and I don't feel that I have as much control over the low-end as I do with the DAC2.
I listened to some fantastic sounding DSD-recordings through both units, and even though I had to stop and switch sound card settings in HQPlayer to be able to change DAC, the difference was still audible.
The Benchmark DAC2 sounds fantastic and it's the best converter I've had the pleasure of trying out in my control room. It will not be sent back to the distributor.
I don't know if I will sell the Mytek DSD DAC, because it's also a fantastic sounding DAC and there might be situations where I prefer it over the DAC2, have to compare them some more. The Mytek also has better connectivity and software features.
A couple of annoying features with the DAC2: soft-key power on and the motorised volume knob always start by going to null when powering on the unit. I prefer DACs that remembers the last volume setting and that powers on when I hit the studio main power on switch.
Cheers
Fred
Sound On Sound contributor
