DAC1 HDR Review - Jeff Rabin, Enjoy the Music.com
DAC1 HDR - "The studio heritage of this Benchmark preamp is quite obvious"
"The studio heritage of this Benchmark (DAC1 HDR) preamp is quite obvious. I'd like to say the sound was lean but not thin. I expect this however is an artifact of my sonic memory, having listened to far too many tubby tubed pre-amps in my past. In fact, I believe it is merely neutral. And unlike all but the best solid state preamps or integrateds I have listened to, there was none of that solid state hash or haze heard through lesser designs. 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."
- Jeff Rabin, Enjoy the Music.com
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DAC3 Review - Alan Sircom, hi-fi+
"A Damn Good, No-Frills Digital Converter"
"Benchmark Media Systems’ no-nonsense approach to all things audio is rare today."
"Uniformly Good"
"This is a DAC that’s uniformly good at everything. It resolves well, has good imaging properties."
"It makes a balanced, honest sound that allows you to sit and listen to music for hours. That is what makes Benchmark’s products consistently popular with audio engineers. You don’t want ‘bright’ if you sit at a mixing desk 10 hours a day. "
"Leave No Trace"
"It also has the latest version of Benchmark’s jitter attenuation system (UltraLock3) and doubles down on the digital demon with its multi-mode asynchronous USB system."
"Benchmark also uses the distortion compensation facilities built into the ESS chip to reduce second and third order distortion."
"The net result is a DAC that delivers lower distortion, lower noise, less passband ripple, faster signal switching and locking onto signals and a more linear frequency response."
"The Benchmark Media Systems DAC3 B is very much in the ‘leave no trace’ school of good audio."
- Alan Sircom, hi-fi+
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