DAC3 HGC Review - Tom Lyle, Enjoy the Music.com

DAC3 HGC - "I was immediately impressed by the sound"

"The separation of sounds, that see-through quality, and the air around individual instruments and voices is what distinguishes the difference between simply good high-end digital components and excellent sounding high-end digital components."

"It is this sense of space that I more often than not notice first. And I noticed this trait immediately with the Benchmark Media DAC3 HGC."

"The headphone output of the DAC3 is magnificent."

"Used as a headphone amplifier the DAC3 seems to have many of the same traits as its main outputs., as its separation of instruments is extremely admirable, and its way of reproducing what some call a soundfield, or a headphone soundstage, is also outstanding."

"The star of the show is the unit's digital converter, which uses an ESS Sabre Pro 32-bit converter chip. I could easily fill the rest of the review with not only a description of the converting prowess of this ESS Sabre Pro chip, but also discuss its excellent specifications. Briefly, the ESS Sabre Pro has a 32-bit PCM D/A conversion system, four 32-bit D/A converters per channel."

"Benchmark's DAC3 includes a digital output, which is a digital pass-through from its USB, S/PDIF coax, and TosLink optical inputs when the function is enabled. The Benchmark Media DAC3 comes with a nice metal remote that controls all of the functions that one is most likely to need when sitting in one's listening seat."

"Fantastic"

"The Benchmark Media DAC3 HGC is a fantastic digital-to-analog converter that comes with a fantastic headphone amplifier with two outputs, and can also double as a fantastic preamplifier. Its asking price is more than reasonable for such a versatile component, with a sound quality that can be compared to units costing much more."

- Tom Lyle, Enjoy the Music.com

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