Thiel Owners

Thank you all for your thoughts on DACs. I've read some reviews on your selections and they sound like very solid buys. This helps me put things in perspective. I'll be using the Benchmark DAC3-B for my and my collaborators' work, but learning who's who in today's marketplace helps me find my bearings.

Tomorrow I drive to Virginia to meet with Bill Thalmann of Music Technologies, pick up my Sony SCD-1 (CD only working) and drop off my Classé gear for optimization work. Back home by Monday night.

@unsound --

As for the Benchmark DACs; while I realize that a DAC is more than the sum of it’s parts, I find it irksome that Benchmark chooses to cheap out and use the lesser Sabre chips when much less expensive DACs use the the top of the line Sabre chips.

Hmm .. do I sense a modding opportunity here?

I approached Benchmark about audiophile upgrades such as this opportunity and/or a higher power AHB-2 or higher-end caps, etc. John Siau is convinced that the present level of performance is optimized. I've been told there is not a DAC4 in the works.

I'll ask Bill if he thinks the higher-performing chip would be a drop-in improvement. I'll report back, since I would be a likely first user.

Tom,
Excellent! I haven’t changed from my "well, that’s it" initial impression of the DAC3B since putting it in my system a few years ago. But you know how it is, there always seems to be somewhere over the rainbow.

How much more for the better dac chip, 20 bucks at their cost a hundred  bucks at retail? Time for the next model at a higher price that they could already be selling today. Tom