DAC3 Review - Ben Shyman, Home Theater Review
DAC3 - "Its Sound is Among the Best at Any Price"
"Benchmark Media began in the mid-1980s providing audio equipment to television broadcast facilities. Today it is recognized amongst recording professionals and high-end audio enthusiasts for producing high-end, sonically transparent components."
"The DAC3 is solidly built ..."
"The components look as if they were designed for studio performance. If you are seeking slick, contemporary componentry with digital displays and backlit remotes, you will fare better shopping elsewhere."
"Features include a hybrid gain control (the digital and analog volume paths are discrete), a high-current preamp output with multiple settings that can be adjusted to better match the input sensitivity of your power amplifier, analog inputs, a headphone amplifier, a home theater pass-through, a 12-volt trigger, and the same heavy-duty metal remote control that the company has offered for years. The front panel includes eight LEDs that indicate which input is in use, as well as six LEDs that indicate sample rate and word length. This is incredibly helpful ..."
"While the DAC3's aesthetics are identical to those of the DAC2, the similarities stop there. All major changes and upgrades are internal, the biggest being the ESS ES9028PRO digital-to-analog converter. As of this writing, only three companies utilize chips in the new ESS PRO lineup."
"When I first began evaluating the DAC3, I was impressed with just how quiet it really is."
"The DAC3 also possesses an uncanny ability to resolve hidden details that typically get lost in a mix. With more resolved detail, the tonality of instruments sounds more real. As someone who played guitar for the better part of two decades, I felt like Laurence Juber (Altered Reality, Narada, TIDAL Hi-Fi), Richard Thomson (Acoustic Classics, TIDAL Hi-Fi) and Keb' Mo' (Just Like You, Epic, DSD64) were present and performing in my listening space. The vivacity and energy of their recordings took on new life and kept me fully engaged, even when re-listening to the tracks multiple times and finding new details to appreciate."
"The DAC3 also consistently underscored the ability of my Pass Labs XA30.8 and First Watt SIT-2 to produce highly accurate, precise, three-dimensional soundstages. The front-to-back layers and horizontal placement of instruments and vocals in A Love Supreme, Live in Amsterdam by the Branford Marsalis Quartet (Sony Masterworks, 24/48) and 1 by The Beatles (EMI/Apple, TIDAL Hi-Fi) were delivered with punctuated accuracy."
"The DAC3 soundstage is highly accurate, and its sound is among the best at any price."
"The DAC3 employs a state-of-the-art ES9028PRO SABRE digital-to-analog converter and will outlive the usual rapid technological obsolescence of most DACs."
"The headphone amplifier is a highly worthwhile addition to the HGC and DX models."
"The Benchmark DAC3, despite showing no differences in the aesthetics department over the DAC2, is a meaningful step forward in digital-to-analog conversion. It utilizes a state-of-the-art chipset from ESS and is somewhat future-proof as a result, compared with other DACs. I never owned the DAC2, but I did own a DAC1 for several years, and the sonic improvement here is significant on many levels."
"Like any component at any price, the DAC3 is not for everyone. However, if your priority is digital conversion of your favorite two-channel music and movies with purity and transparency, the DAC3 should receive your fullest consideration."
"It resolves digital sources with precision and finesse; and, whether you decide to use the DAC3 as a preamplifier/DAC or a standalone DAC, it is a complete winner and will be right at home in any audiophile two-channel system."
- Ben Shyman, Home Theater Review
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