DAC3 Review - Marty Feldmann, Connoisseur Corner
DAC3 HGC - "Musical Truth"
"The year was 1983 and the garage was located in Garland, Texas. Benchmark founder Allen H. Burdick engineered and built professional audio gear used by television broadcast facilities. Over the years, Benchmark relocated to Syracuse, NY and grew their audio product line into several markets, including the recording industry. Many of those products, including the Benchmark DACs and amplifiers, are being scooped up by the at-home audiophile crowd for use in high-end sound systems."
"Today we are going to visit the world of digital music. I’m referencing high-definition tunes – no mp3 files allowed...! Why no mp3, you ask? Remember how your TV picture looked in 1989? Compare that to how your hi-def TV looks today. I think you get the picture…"
"The DAC3 is, of course, the 3rd generation of Benchmark’s DAC, and utilizes a brand-new converter chip from ESS Technology, along with improvements in parts and engineering."
"So, what exactly is musical truth?"
"The truth is when your senses receive what the artist intended to portray. When the audio quality gets to your ears at a more accurate level, the groove and emotion of the music improves accordingly, getting you closer to exactly what occurred in the studio or at the live concert, in a blood, sweat and tears kind of way…" - Marty Feldmann
"The folks at Benchmark Media, with their background in the recording industry, are driven to get that musical truth into the home with their products. With the release of the original DAC1 models and the second generation DAC2, Benchmark has been on the bleeding edge of digital technology trends, especially from a price/performance perspective."
"The new DAC3 ups the performance ante with the new ESS Technologies ES9028PRO converter chip, the brain or “centerpiece” of the DAC3. Utilizing this new and impressive chip, along with other engineering creativity generates improvements in lower THD and noise, reduction in jitter of the digital signal, better harmonic performance and better headroom."
"You’re probably curious how this little dynamo sounds…"
"As usual, the Feldmann music selection runs the gamut from classical through jazz, R&B, folk, and all the way to Disturbed… er… metal. I feel strongly that all genres of music are necessary to completely wring out a product."
"The first thing I noticed, in casual listening and without any hours of break-in on the DAC, was nothingness… a vacuum, or if you prefer, a “sonic void”. There exists no extraneous noise between or behind notes or sounds. You don’t realize the noise is there until you hear a system without it. The difference can be illuminating!"
"I became enamored with the transient speed of the Benchmark unit. Whether the leading edge of the thwack of stick hitting drum, or the decay of a plucked guitar string or cymbal, the DAC3 nailed it with absolute realism."
"Harmonic structure also stood out as being properly balanced and sorted, with piano and other stringed instruments fleshed out with excellent presence and weight. Matt Haimovitz with his baroque cello playing Bach, Emilie-Claire Barlow’s jazz vocal stylings, or Billy Howerdel’s rock guitar work with A Perfect Circle… all presented with nuance, detail and life!"
"Are there any negatives here?"
"Nothing that comes to mind. One could nitpick about the design aesthetic being too utilitarian as opposed to audiophile jewelry, but the build quality is without fault."
"In my time with the DAC3 I kept going back to my musician days, and the time I would spend in the studio. The immediacy and intimacy of how everything sounded, from single tracks to the completed mix of a song all came to mind. That says a lot to me about this DAC…! Musical truth…
- Marty Feldmann, The Connoisseur, Connoisseur Corner
Read the entire review:
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AHB2 Review - Constantine Soo, Dagogo
"The AHB2 bridgeable stereo amplifier ... was the topic of a recent discussion between American electrostatic panel speaker manufacturer Sound Lab’s president, Dr. Roger West, and me."
"In our discussion, he related his highly positive experience in driving even his largest, $55k Majestic 945 panels with the $7,000 pair of Benchmark Media AHB2 monoblocks, along with the $3,050 LA4 Preamplifier and factory XLR cables."
"Dr. West described the AHB2 as a class AB design using “feed-forward distortion reduction [thus removing] any possibility of pushing the margin of safety of a standard feedback loop, used in most amplifiers, into an unstable oscillatory mode.”"
"He further shared with me that “this is of most concern on powerful musical transients. The distortion of the amplifier in the balanced mode is astonishingly low even at just below the clipping level of 380 watts.”"
"The prospect of the AHB2’s specified distortion level of 0.00015% or lower when at full volume is comical at first glance, but upon actual audition the impact of the achievement is very audible from medium-high listening levels and upward."
"It was unlike any other sub-$20,000 amplifier I have auditioned."
"My audition of the Benchmark Media AHB2 amplifiers underscores the reason Dr. West is so taken by it, and confirms the design is best described as a watershed moment in the high-end audio industry."
- Constantine Soo, Dagogo
DAC3 Review - Jerry Del Colliano
"Benchmark is a stalwart brand in pro audio, but has carved out a very respectable niche in the audiophile world with their diminutive but powerful components."
"The audiophile world sometimes looks to the professional audio world for enlightenment, especially on the digital side of things, and Benchmark Media is one of the companies that we put high on a pedestal."
"They are hardcore digital engineers freezing their asses off in upstate New York as they come up with some pretty innovative ways to get your varied digital sources sounding as much like the master tape as possible. Thank you for your service, gentlemen."
"If you really want to hear what your music sounds like in today’s streaming-driven world, this might just be the DAC that you need to test out."
- Jerry Del Colliano, Future Audiophile
DAC3 & AHB2 - System Review, Trevor Butler, The-Ear.net
"I began with the DAC3 HGC and AHB2 powering the glorious Morel Avyra 633 three-way floorstanders."
"This pairing created a full-bodied sound which brought the recording to life."
"Notable from the off was the bass from the DAC3 HGC and AHB2."
"Wow! It was deep, tight and conveyed a real feeling that the electronics were in charge of the transducers."
"Involuntary foot-tapping confirmed the timing ability and the overall presentation was spot-on, the Benchmark electronics created a fluent sound across a vivid soundstage; performers evident both tonally and spatially in an easy-to-believe presentation that brought the performance close."
"The Benchmark’s ability to retrieve deep-down detail and display it so well across the soundstage, with accurate positioning and convincing layering, made for a glorious re-creation of the recordings."
"To my mind the AHB2 is an amplifier with no obvious characteristics of its own: the level of transparency is sublime."
"Above all, the improved transient response performance stood out in a presentation that was not only lively but incredibly fast and revealing. The attack and decay displayed was awesome and not something I expect at this price point."
"The Benchmark DAC3 HGC and AHB2 are cracking products, sonically superior to a lot that’s available and well priced."
"They are superbly designed and built to an extremely high standard."
- Trevor Butler, the-ear.net