DAC1 will be on the bright, forward side of things. It may make you not want to listen to some CDs as it is very picky and will not forgive a badly recorded cd and will let it all through. And a lot of CDs are recorded just bad. The DAC1 is what it is, a monitoring tool. I completely agree with that assesment made by Bob Reynolds. If you want smoother sound, a bit more liquid mids and highs with deeper bass and no loss of resolution, then you should consider Bel Canto DAC2. I had both the Benchmark and Bel Canto dacs in my system for comparison and kept Bel Canto. I felt that Benchmark lacked musicality. It was just simply digital sounding, way too digital, as a matter of fact.
Haven't heard the Tjoeb, can't saying anything about that one.
Clio, allow me to disagree with you on the AM dac level of performance. I do say that it sounds pretty good for a $500 dac, but that's about it. I wouldn't put it in the same league as Bel Canto DAC2. I can see though where I can prefer the AM dac over Benchmark, simply because it doesn't sound as digital in comparison. But there are better choices out there than Audio Mirror.
P.S.
I was driving the Bel Canto DAC2 with a $60 Philips DVD player and it sounded great via both the coax and optical outputs.
Haven't heard the Tjoeb, can't saying anything about that one.
Clio, allow me to disagree with you on the AM dac level of performance. I do say that it sounds pretty good for a $500 dac, but that's about it. I wouldn't put it in the same league as Bel Canto DAC2. I can see though where I can prefer the AM dac over Benchmark, simply because it doesn't sound as digital in comparison. But there are better choices out there than Audio Mirror.
P.S.
I was driving the Bel Canto DAC2 with a $60 Philips DVD player and it sounded great via both the coax and optical outputs.