I s Benchmark the "Benchmark"

My findings have been the most "accurate" gear allows for the greater amount of recordings to sound best .

Being a casual listener and having used two of their DACs, I really like the Benchmark products. I started with the DAC 1-USB and upgraded to the DAC2-HGC. Really only because I had a little mad money for once. I wlll say it was a nice upgrade in sound quality. Very clean sounding and the music seems to come from a completely black backround. Made my room sound larger yet fuller so to speak. When I listed the DAC-1 on A-Gon it sold in less than an hour. Every once in a while I look for listings here and they are almost non-existant, so I feel they are a sought after product.
Mine is played through a Krell KCT pre & FPB300cx with my Sony laptop & Jriver. It never makes a sound, it's made in USA & Rory at Benchmark is a cool guy if you ever need any info.
I hope this helps, John.

bel canto dacs are better sounding.

Chris I have a bel canto c5i integrated. The dac is pretty good and probably not bel cantos best so that says something. Would like to compare to Benchmark. I also have mhdt Constantine dac in my main rig currently. It is very musical and engaging but the bc is probably more detailed.

I just bought a Benchmark A/D converter after having a very long conversation with a tech at Benchmark. I had previously bought a Tascam DA-3000 which has a very poor sounding analog front end. I plan to use the Benchmark to do the A/D conversion, and feed the digital to the Tascam. Then let the Tascam generate the digital WAV files from the 24 bit/96K digital stream from the Benchmark.

The benchmark does not use a discrete component analog front end like the Ayre, but they do use some of the best sounding opamps in use currently. AD797s (John Curl's reportedly favorite opamp) and LME49860. They also use a minimum of coupling caps that are triple bypassed with NPO ceramics.

I will be testing this setup in the next few days and report back. I was impressed by the Benchmark tech as he really new nitty gritty details of their product, and emphasized they do a lot of listening in the design process (they are not just "pro-sumer" like Tascam, Berringer, and other companies).