External DAC for Cambridge CXN (V2) and Sony XA 5400 ES

arize84... not sure I am onboard with " a tube preamp with a pronounced sound signature / coloration". If every piece of wire, power cord, tube, etc., produces a noticeable difference I’m not at all sure the LS2BMKII would mask differences in DAC performance because it sure doesn’t mask anything else.... but you do have a point on pricing.
displayname62... thanks for your response, soundstage and imaging are very important to me and presently the stage is much wider than the 16 foot wide room and varies from front and center in a club to first few rows depending on source material, station, original recording and such. Tried an ARC LS 17 SE pre and a LS 27 pre and they both had tiny compressed stages and left faster than they came.to try. Thanks for the info on Modwright although I’m reluctant to make irreversible changes to see if I like the results.

mahler123 Thanks for the info on the Bryston and HDMI. I probably have 30 or 40 SACD recordings and that would be important. I would not be surprised to find the Bryston to outperform the Benchmark, although it is a few years older but it is more than double the money, but again, would have to find a way to try before I buy as too much stuff has left here faster than it came. Maybe a local dealer (if there are any left) would have one that could be tried.

Well..  I've decided (I think) to order the Benchmark DAC 3b this coming week from Benchmark.First shootout will be the Benchmark fed by the Cambridge digitally to my AR preamp via balanced interconnects against the Cambridge on it's analogue cables to my pre.
If that is successful the second shootout will be the Sony XA 5400 ES feeding the Benchmark digitally vs. the Sony on RCA analogue and on the reverse, the Benchmark on RCA vs. the Sony on balanced.
Cables will be Digital Belden 1694A with Canare jacks as that's what Benchmark recommends and sells.  I also have some Digital Straightwire Silver Streak II on the way in for testing.  Balanced cables are Straightwire Virtuoso (one of their level 4 reference cables) and a Straightwire Expressivo level 3 high end audio RCA cable.  I have some others I could try but the Straightwire cables (including Maestro) outperformed everything else I ever tried so that is what it is.  Power cord will be an 3m Audioquest.
I did have some concerns about SACD playback but after considering that situation I listen mostly now via streaming, and while I have a nice 700+ disc collection just don't play CDs very often,  and SACDs perhaps a couple a year now.  Throwing another $1800 at this to cover SACD playback from the Sony HDMI outputs (to a Bryston D/A)  just doesn't make sense to me.  I would expect the next step, if I take it would be to re-digitize by re-recording all my disks in FLAC or WAV on something like a Bluenode Vault 2i.  The downside to that is they say it runs about 20 minutes a CD and WTF, I'm 73 years old this month.  I'm not looking for nearly year long projects.

That's actually an excellent point.  For the $1299 cost of a Blue Node Vault 2i, and a quality power cord and cable I could probably pay monthly  for Tidal for fifteen years or more.....    since I'll be 73 this month I guess it's time to try Tidal and forget any idea of re-digitizing.  Thanks again, it was a concept I was missing.. 

I agree...  RCA vs. RCA and XLR vs. XLR would be a better apples to apples but Expressivo (RCA) and Virtuoso (XLR) are not inexpensive cables and I just don't have spares to make the comparison true apples to apples.  I think the difference in conductors make cables sound different to a greater extent than the connection configuration does, but that's just my take on it having run the same cables in both RCA and XLR configuration as a test.

OP here....   Benchmark DAC 3 b has been delivered.  Connected and immediately determined the internal jumpers at -10 db was not enough and opened it up and moved the jumpers to -20 db...  which makes the output a correct match for my Audio Research preamp.  Initial impressions after 30 minutes of listening to a brand new DAC with brand new Belden 1694A digital cables and a balanced pair of Virtuoso interconnects which haven't been run enough in the last 6 months to keep them broken in ......   low octaves for bass fiddle, piano, drums and so forth jump out with previously unheard detail and intensity.  Rhythm and drive of the system, which it already had in spades, may be even more present and makes you want to get up and dance in the room.  Air and space around individual instruments is better than either source was before, as is the silence at the back of it all.  Sound stage as wide as before, which was already beyond the walls.  Depth, already was deep so I need more time to tell about any changes here.  Observations apply to both the Cambridge streaming for a couple of hours  and the Sony XA 5400 ES for the one disk played so far. The DAC 3 b is small, smaller than I expected and takes very little shelf space.  More after getting a couple hundred hours on it as I'm going to be running it 24/7 now.