DAC3 Review - Rob Boffard, The Master Switch
DAC3 HGC - "As Close to Flawless Sound Quality as We’ve Ever Heard"
"The Benchmark DAC3 HGC – which is a combination headphone amp, Digital-to-Analogue Converter (DAC) and preamp – has perhaps the most comprehensive manual we’ve ever seen. Not to say intimidating. It covers not only every single eventuality and situation in which the DAC3 could conceivably be used, but also includes a wealth of technical information, from jitter tolerance to total harmonic distortion graphs."
"The DAC is a small, compact box with black housing and a metal front plate, one that is clearly been designed for insertion into a studio rack but which is equally at home sitting on a shelf next to a pair of headphones or a set of speakers."
"The sleek metal panel looks and feels great, with an engraved Benchmark logo and buttons that have a pleasing solidity to them. Although the features on the front may prove a bit head scratching at first, things like the Dim/Mute option, which lowers the volume twenty decibels with a single press, prove surprisingly useful. And the DAC3 has just the most fantastic volume control: a machined, motorised metal pot that not only moves on its own when commanded (with a pleasing whirr) but also turns beautifully in the fingers."
"A short page through the manual primes you for what kind of experience this is going to be: a complex, technical one, that is going to require a little bit of work to get things the way you want them. Plug and play this is not. In a way, it’s a little refreshing. Although we love the fact that so much audio gear is easy to set up and run, it’s refreshing – even startling – to encounter something that takes a little bit of work."
"If you stick around long enough to learn the ins and outs of this demanding piece of equipment, you’ll be rewarded with some absolutely jaw-dropping sound."
"There is an absolutely staggering amount of high-level technology packed into the tiny black box, and what it amounts to is this: glorious audio quality."
"Whether we were using it as a preamp, a headphone amp, or a straight DAC, it was nothing but outstanding. What grabbed us, more than anything else, was the clarity and realism. We genuinely felt like we were hearing every single note like it was meant to be heard, with almost no coloration or distortion."
"Although it worked well in all genres, it particularly excelled at things like heavy metal, offering mids and highs that really allowed the guitars to bite. And again, everything was just crystal clear, with no distortion whatsoever. It got to the point that we were throwing different styles and genres at it, just to see if we could get it to falter. It didn’t. No matter what we tried, the DAC3 never missed a beat."
"As far as we’re concerned, it comes as close to flawless sound quality as we’ve ever heard."
- Rob Boffard, The Master Switch
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