A DAC that crushes price vs. performance ratio

@lordcloud

@facten

Coloration from source equipment, source material, interconnects, etc. are all identical regardless of what DAC is used, so if any inherent coloration of the DAC itself are below audible, then there is nothing else to consider.

And again, none of those connections offer any benefit over coax/USB/Toslink. Benchmark set out to make the most transparent DAC without costing $10,000 like some other company’s products, if they believed it made a difference, they would have added them, as it doesn’t cost much to do so, there are DACs less than $100 that support I^2 S, it is nothing special, “bypassing conversion” offers no benefit, it is just marketing. If it were truly the best, every reputable high end DAC would have it, yet it’s a scarce feature.

And yes, my claims are on measured performance, which are way more telling than human reviews. Let me ask you, did you hear Yanny or Laurel, did you see a white+gold dress or a black+blue dress? Our brains are easily fooled. There is also hard proof that people review items better if they like the looks and/or know it is expensive, it’s the same reason people think $5000 Toslink cables are better than $20 ones. 
 
Unless talking tube gear, meaning only solid state, the concept of “system synergy” does not exist, a DAC either performs well or it doesn’t, what speakers you have or what your RCA cables cost is irrelevant.

Frankly gentlemen,

I did not start this thread to argue over specs or other DACS in comparison to the Lab 12.  Just wanted to inform readers that the Lab12 offers reference level performance at a reasonable price point.

I'm kinda tired of the same old argument regarding measurements can tell you how a piece of gear will sound.  I have had in-house many pieces that had great measurements and sounded like crap. Others did not measure great but offered terrific performance.

Finally, since one of you loves the Benchmark DAC performance, I had one in for review, found it so sterile and mechanical sounding, yes it was burn-in, that I refused to waste my time on listening to it. So, please this hobby boils down to synergy and personal taste, not measurements. 

@teajay

You finding the Benchmark sterile is a compliment to its transparency. If you want to add colorations, that’s your preference (just like how there are countless reviews raving of its performance, that’s why I don’t trust reviews with measurements as back up), I am merely stating that if you want to hear how the song is mastered, no hiding any blemishes or “improving” the songs by adding coloration, the Benchmark is an excellent product.

As for gear measuring good but sounding like “crap”, since you don’t prefer accurate reproduction, I wouldn’t suggest giving product endorsement unless you state that coloration is your preference. Since you recommend this product as a steal of a price, if someone favoring accurate reproduction bought it, I would imagine they may be disappointed.

Sterility does not equate to transparency. Tone, timbre, sound staging, fullness and realism can most definitely point to transparency if that is in the original recording. 

The lack of those qualities can take a natural and pleasing production of a real event and render it lifeless, or sterile, as teajay pointed out. 

All the best,
Nonoise

@nonoise

Tone: Frequency response.

Timbre: Distortion.

Soundstage: Channel matching and channel separation.

Fullness: Frequency response.

Realism: Nonsense description.

The DACs I mentioned all do those well, behind human audibility.

MQA you can see, using terms like sterile or lifesless causes confusion, it’s best to actually talk about what the product is doing good or doing bad, rather than make up description words that actually don’t directly describe, like calling a Samsung TV’s picture as feminine and a Sony TV as masculine.