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Upgrade from Benchmark Dac?

The Benchmark USB DAC is the first piece of digital gear that I've bought and been happy with. I still prefer analog but listening to 50,000+ wav files randomly is pretty sweet.

I've had an Audio Research DAC 3 as well as a CD1 which I thought sounded like crap. I have ARC electronics and love them but their digital offerings left me cold. On the value for money scale the Benchmark gets my highest rating although my local hifi emporiums claim the PS Audio or Bryston is better.

Anything out there in the digital world that will blow me away like the Benchmark? I don't want to spend ten times the dough to get a debatable 10% more "sound".
ntscdan

Showing 4 responses by mapman

mapman's avatar
mapman
22,636 posts
 
Interesting question. I'm curious what the answer is.

I think I know what will sound different but not what represents a clear "upgrade".
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,636 posts
 
"I owned the benchmark and went to the Marantz 8260, and gave up a bit more top end air and got more body and weight in the bass."

Changing tubes in the mhdt Paradisea can produce similar effects easily for minimal cost.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,636 posts
 
" I have at least 3x the cost of the DAC 1 on it's power"

"Doesn't that strike you as a bit...ah...wacko?"

Overkill, maybe. Maybe not. I could see it if power was very dirty to start with and the PC device resolves it. Still, there might be a less expensive PC solution that does it. I don't know one way or the other.

But, it doesn't necessarily surprise me that the Benchmark requires clean power to work its resolving magic to the max.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,636 posts
 
I use an inexpensive Monster Power bar filter as Shadorne described on my system. It is the only special power conditioning solution in play and seems to do the job quite well in my case. All digital sources and pre-amp are powered from it (not the power amp). The digital sound is clean, tight, detailed and focused. Not sure what more I would gain with anything else, though it would be interesting to experiment.
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