Capt369, you asked about the soundstage of the DAC Ah. It's very good and an improvement over what I've heard in the four or five mid-priced ($300-600) CD or DVD players I've compared it to and tried with it as transports.
In my first post I did compare the DAC Ah favorably to the Benchmark DAC I also own and the DAC Ah is amazing given the price difference. I should make it clear, though, that the Benchmark does sound better to me in every way. Whether the difference in sound is worth the difference in price is entirely up to you. It is to me but it might not be to anyone else.
The difference becomes a lot more significant as you upgrade the rest of the components in the system. I A/B'd the two with a pair of $400 Usher S-520 speakers and the difference was obvious but not dramatic. The same comparison using a pair of Merlin TSM-MM's and a pair of DeVore Fidelity Gibbon 8's, both of which I own at the moment, reveals a lot more about how much better the Benchmark is.
The DAC Ah is a great piece of equipment at a great price. I got it to give to a friend who has a nostalgic but unreasonable affection for an AMC CD8b player. I've been unable to convince her to upgrade the player so I decided I could sneak the DAC Ah into the setup without her really noticing and I wouldn't fret any more about the AMC's being the weak link in her otherwise very nice system. In her system the DAC Ah is a huge improvement and seems like an incredible bargain but the Benchmark's price means it wouldn't make any sense. In my system, the Benchmark does make sense.
