Thank you all for your insightful responses!
The synergy between components to one another and the interconnects between them, as mentioned in Michélle's response, is something for which I have great respect. Sadly, it's often blind luck that ends up fixing the problem for me. At least in this case I have an apple to compare to another apple, and I *know* the specific component in the system that's responsible for the change in sound. My collection of audiophile quality cables is small (limited to the Nordost Blue Heavens that I'm currently using, a few offering from Tributaries that have never really sounded good to me, and a few sets of Mogami Gold that mostly see use in the music studio). I feel that, while adding cables to the comparison might not be useful at this point, I might swap them out later in this process and see what the results are.
The sound of the PS Audio is not what I'd call vinyl-like. And I hesitate to describe it as warm. It definitely has the flavor of a solid state device, but manages not to be "out front" nearly as much as the Benchmark. Again, the level of noise isn't perceptibly different than that of the Benchmark in my current system, which is to say that I cannot detect any noise whatsoever in either DAC.
And with that in mind, I've decided to swap out the Magnepans for Klipsch LaScalas and see if an extremely efficient horn speaker can shed any light on the noise and dynamic range issues. Or, at the very least, see if any differences are revealed between the two DACs in those specific categories while using the other speakers. Who knows? Maybe that will bridge the gap between the measurements and my perception, even if I may actually be getting to the point (albeit slowly) where I no longer put a premium on measurements in choosing audio components.
The synergy between components to one another and the interconnects between them, as mentioned in Michélle's response, is something for which I have great respect. Sadly, it's often blind luck that ends up fixing the problem for me. At least in this case I have an apple to compare to another apple, and I *know* the specific component in the system that's responsible for the change in sound. My collection of audiophile quality cables is small (limited to the Nordost Blue Heavens that I'm currently using, a few offering from Tributaries that have never really sounded good to me, and a few sets of Mogami Gold that mostly see use in the music studio). I feel that, while adding cables to the comparison might not be useful at this point, I might swap them out later in this process and see what the results are.
The sound of the PS Audio is not what I'd call vinyl-like. And I hesitate to describe it as warm. It definitely has the flavor of a solid state device, but manages not to be "out front" nearly as much as the Benchmark. Again, the level of noise isn't perceptibly different than that of the Benchmark in my current system, which is to say that I cannot detect any noise whatsoever in either DAC.
And with that in mind, I've decided to swap out the Magnepans for Klipsch LaScalas and see if an extremely efficient horn speaker can shed any light on the noise and dynamic range issues. Or, at the very least, see if any differences are revealed between the two DACs in those specific categories while using the other speakers. Who knows? Maybe that will bridge the gap between the measurements and my perception, even if I may actually be getting to the point (albeit slowly) where I no longer put a premium on measurements in choosing audio components.