Tagore Wrote: > Have recently been trialling the Benchmark DAC with the SB3 and was > disappointed by the lack of apparent stepup in performance. > This is not just to my ears but also many friends that I have asked to > listen for improvements. If there is an improvement I and they fail to > hear it. > Am running the Linkwitz Orions which are pretty revealing speakers > which makes it even more of a disappointment. > SB3 alone I am more than happy with.
I'm running a DAC1 also. A few things that really made a difference in getting my DAC1 up there: 1. Moving to balanced cables - one of the pluses of the DAC1 (presuming you have a balanced power amp). Not sure if you are running balanced in your setup. 2. Getting good balanced interconnects. A friend of mine made a great set of cables up for me. I'm not in the least an interconnect zealot, but I must admit, it helped a lot. 3. Ditching the SB digital volume control and using the DAC1 control. Another admission - I think I'm just biased on this... and that the remote volume control is sorely missed. 4. I got a tube based amp - I found that it rounds out the DAC1 nicely (which is quite clinical to my subjective ear + my speakers are quite clinical to boot...) 5. Decent subwoofer.... (sore point - I don't actually one at the moment, but I've lent out the DAC1 to other people). Not sure why this is - I think the DAC1 response has a very clinical response and a good subwoofer can really push the sound. Altogether these are probably minor, but for my setup which is: EAC+Flac -> SB2 -> DAC -(Balanced)-> Power Amp -> Speakers ... I think it's one of the most straight-forward, purest setups you can get. For me that is the real strength of the DAC1 - it really pushes towards having a transparent system. No preamp, etc, etc. Basically signal straight out to the speakers. That said, that kind of transparency grates on some (many?) - For me, the addition of the tube stage injects a bit of needed personality. Subwoofer helps even more. Anyway - Going from that setup to SB2 -RCA-> Amp is a quite noticable difference. DAC1 isn't a quantum leap better, but I think it's good value in the right system. -- jhwilliams ------------------------------------------------------------------------ jhwilliams's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1876 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=23871 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
