Can You Beat Simple?

@lalitk 

It appears you may have stumbled upon one of those ‘accurate’ sounding DAC’s that are everything but musical :-)

+1 You have identified a common theme. It seems whenever an audio component is described as lean/clean/hyper detailed, it’s referred to as “accurate.” If it were truly accurate the music reproduction would be unfailingly and undeniably musically enticing and emotionally engaging. Real instruments have harmonic color, body, richness,vividness and full bodied tone. They are not thin, dry, sterile and analytical. This is not accurate this is inaccurate/synthetic.

Charles

I took me a while to get used to Benchmark's sound, but now I would never go back.

Could it be you've been conditioned?

Maybe it’s a me thing. Maybe my mind needs time to adapt and/or my system needs more burn-in time. 

Maybe it’s a me thing. Maybe my mind needs time to adapt and/or my system needs more burn-in time.

Maybe, but it’d sure be helpful if you could share the rest of your equipment along with cables and power conditioning. If you chased specs as per ASR it’s not surprising you find your sound over analytical or clinical sounding. Not everything is captured in measurements, and certainly not personal tastes and/or system synergy. The more info you share the better feedback you’ll get here. FWIW.

Only non upsampling DAC's for me please. 

Real instruments have harmonic color, body, richness,vividness and full bodied tone

There is now way to remove overtones/harmonics of instruments as long as amplifier/pre/DAC has adequate bandwidth.  The only thing good gear can remove is coloration, noise and distortion.