@atmasphere Just to follow up on the past post. I contacted Benchmark and their Engineering department confirmed the following:
Thanks for your patience. Yes, our units do support the AES48 standard.
As I mentioned previously, with my old Benchmark DAC3 + AHB2, I could not tell a difference between using Bryston Canare XLR between the preamp + amp and Audience Au24 XLR. The Bryston cost me about $60 about 20 years ago and the Audience was a few hundred used.
I contacted LuxmanUSA to ask about the AES48 standard and they are contacting Luxman Japan to ask engineering.
Just wanted to add this if anyone was interested.