DAC3 Review - Jim Austin, Stereophile

DAC3 HGC - "Astonishing Fidelity and Emotional Expressiveness"

"Transparency is an important idea—it’s the fidelity in high fidelity—and it contradicts the ubiquitous high-end notion that every audio component has a sound of its own."

"A few musical moments stood out: The loud, blatty trombones in the second movement of Shostakovich’s Symphony 5, with Mstislav Rostropovich conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, made me shiver. The quiet, sustained violins in the next movement were delicate and clean—really lovely."

"Benchmark Media Systems’ DAC3 HGC is evidence that an engineering-focused company—one that seems to spend more time staring at instruments than testing its devices with their ears, and that cares more about transparency than it does about whether or not you like the sound their products make—can produce a product of astonishing fidelity and emotional expressiveness."

"Science works ... never underestimate a good geek."

- Jim Austin, Stereophile

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