DAC1 HDR Award - Enjoy the Music.com 20/20 Award
DAC1 HDR - "Top 20 Most Notable Digital Products from the Past 20 Years"
Enjoy the Music.com takes a look back at the 20 most significant digital audio products from the past 20 years.
"It is widely known within the high-end audio industry that Enjoy the Music.com gives out very few awards. With the nearly constant barrage with 'best of' and 'top picks' featuring hundreds of products elsewhere, there is little doubt Enjoy the Music.com is perhaps the most conservative of magazines when it comes to giving out special accolades. With our annual Blue Note awards possibly being the most sought-after within the audiophile industry, as only a very small handful of products get special recognition each year, we want to highlight our 20th anniversary by using our 20/20 vision as it were and look back to some of the best gear."
"As Editor and Creative Director for Enjoy the Music.com, it is my honor to look back at the many thousands of reviews and choose the top 20 per category. This month my choices are for the very best digital gear over the past 20 years."
"The Benchmark DAC1 HDR ($1895, available in silver or black) first became available in 2010 and the positive reviews from virtually every magazine rolled in."
"Our reviewer Jeff Rabin said, 'Detail was neither absent nor did it draw undue attention to itself. Highs were not rolled off, nor were they shrill. Bass was as it should be. While it would be wrong to say it was almost analog in presentation, it was not at all solid state in presentation. The Benchmark really just got out of the way and on with the job. Timbre was natural, dynamics, particularly when employing a heavier duty solid state amp were uncompressed. Indeed, sometimes, on SACD particularly, one might even ask for less dynamic range. As I already declared, I bought the DAC at the reviewer's price.... The future, guys, sorry to have to tell you this, is digital. And I was also loathe to 'invest' in anything with moving parts like a CD player.' You can read our review of the Benchmark DAC1 HDR at this link."
Steven R. Rochlin, Editor, Enjoy the Music.com
Also in Reviews
DAC3 - Award Nominee - Best Digital Audiophile Product of 2024 (Cost No Object)
2024 Nominees
- Benchmark Media DAC3 B DAC, $1895
- Bricasti M3 DAC, $6000
- Bricasti M19 CD-SACD Player, $10,000
- T+A DAC 200, $7620
- Weiss Engineering Helios DAC, $21,995
"There was some debate about whether anybody can hear the differences above a good Chi-Fi DAC like the Topping D90. Unless you are missing most of your high-frequency hearing, you can hear where a high-end DAC makes a difference."
The Bricasti M3 is a great example of that performance in a $6,000 DAC."
"The Benchmark DAC3 B is an audiophile DAC, with pro audio roots, that punches way above its weight."
LA4 Review - Mike Prager, FutureAudiophile.com
"Benchmark Media Systems made its reputation in both pro audio and audiophile circles by designing gear with extraordinarily low noise and distortion, and selling it at reasonable prices."
"What Makes the Benchmark LA4 Preamp So Special?"
"A high-quality volume control is much of what makes a superior preamp shine, and the Benchmark’s volume control is outstanding. The Benchmark LA4 uses a bank of precision resistors switched by gold-contact relays to set volume in 256 steps of 0.5 decibels each."
"If accurate reproduction is your wish, you won’t find a preamp with meaningfully better objective performance than the Benchmark LA4, especially one made in the United States at anything near the LA4’s price."
"Very few preamps at any price reach the LA4’s level of objective performance."
"On the subjective end of things, the Benchmark LA4 preamp puts the lie to the old audiophile myth that neutrality means clinical, cold, or sterile sound. Instead, here neutrality means musical, involving sound, with precise, stable imaging, a sense of space (if one is on the recording), and exceptionally truthful timbres."
- Mike Prager, FutureAudiophile.com
AHB2 Review - Mike Prager, Future Audiophile
"For years, the audio world acknowledged one main contender (at least at sub-five-figure pricing) for the quietest, cleanest, most neutral power amplifier around. That was the Benchmark AHB2, whose specifications are still, for all practical purposes, unsurpassed, even by today’s excellent Class-D amps."
"10 years after its release, the Benchmark Media Systems AHB2 stereo power amp is still a standard-bearer in clean, neutral sound in the audiophile world."
"I greatly enjoyed having a pair of AHB2s in my system – their purity, neutrality, and seemingly unlimited power provided a clear window on the music and a lot of joy."
"I especially appreciated the AHB2’s smooth, well-integrated treble, free of splashiness or grain, and its natural reproduction of the human voice."
- Mike Prager, Future Audiophile