Anyone listening to 24/196?

I had the opportunity to compare apogee rosetta to the altman in my system. To my ears, the altman is a very musical dac, but this is achieved at price. It has, compared to the apogee, rolled off highs, less speed and dynamism and less clear bass definition.

Lightminer - Benchmark has very high oversampling (close to a million times) and could easily output 192kHz (since it uses 24bit/192kHz DAC) but doesn't because DACs at 100kHz have lower THD than at 192kHz.

Kijanki - tell me more. It outputs analog, so I assume you mean input? The literature says it downsamples to 110 even though ithas 192 kHz DACs - that is why I am confused by it. So you are saying they are doing that because they found with that particular DAC chip downsamples to 110 to reduce THD? That could be. But then we aren't getting the fluidity or fullness or whatever from 192, no? At 110, we could just as soon stay with 96? The whole point of going to 192 is to double the info over 96. The Bryston doesn't lower it and neither does the Berkeley, so perhaps it sounds better with the particular DAC chip the Benchmark uses - so in their case it could definitely be better.

The biggest thing the Benchmark has going for it is value. The Benchmark could be the best way to get into this movement, and then as prices come down and more quality is available later, maybe 3 - 5 years, and in the meantime participate in downloading the 24/192 music and building a library - even though you would only be listening to it at 110. If you get the Berklely at 5k at this point, I wouldn't want to replace it in 3-5 years, but in 5 years it could probably be beaten at 1k or even less I would suggest.

DACs are subject to the same phenomenon as digital cameras and other digital nonsense that falls in price by half each year. My amp is something like 12 years old and still seriously kicks butt. DACs don't age like that, so I'm hesitant to spend more than 1k on a DAC. People spent 20 or 30k on the dcs equipment not 8 or 10 years ago, and there are those who claim that the 2k Bryston is in the class of the '99 era dcs gear. (I have absolutely no idea myself, as I don't play in the 20k+ gear range.) The Bryston, while over 1k, does have me intruiged, though. But 5k is too much for something that devalues with such strong intensity - I'm not that well off! Pretty good, but not that good! 5k is still a lot. Heck, 1k is still a lot!

The Altman Attraction does look interesting, I'll continue to read more about it.

Lightminer - "1k is still a lot!" - Yes it is.

Benchmark is an upsampling DAC - it takes input data stream and reclocks it with asynchronous clock. Usampling (oversampling) ratio of 1 million times would not be possible for physical reasons (1 million * 44.1kHz = gazzillions) but input samples are redundant and only exact moment of time to output them to filter/Dac is important. Benchmark is taking statistical average of its clock to be accurate within 5ps. I have exact description of operation in chip's datasheet if you're interested.

Upsampling/oversampling in general is allowing to use gentle filters with even group delays (to allow proper summing of harmonics) - necessary to get rid of any frequency above 22.05kHz that might fold (Nyquist) into 0Hz and up. There is no resolution lost if you update at 100kHz instead of 192kHz since output DACs resolution is still 24-bit but some bandwidth is sacrificed. Benchmark probably felt that THD is little more important than the extra bandwidth.

Benchmark rejects jitter allowing to use cheap transport and cheap digital cables. It is serious DAC with 140dB S/N ratio but many people call it sterile or cold. Bel Canto DAC3 migh be warmer and according to Stereophile sounds a little better but it is 2x more expensive. I have Benchmark and like the sound plus functionality (DVD, HDTV, volume control) but my exposure to top DACs or CD players is minimal - I'm more on technical side of things.

You might find other DACs (incuding non-oversmpling) that sound better to you. I would pay less attention to technical description and more to sound you like and synergy with the rest of your system.

If you decide to buy Benchmark - get the latest USB version for $300 more. It has better output drivers and USB functionality is a plus. Avoid used - early Benchmarks had some problems (like too high output impedance on RCA outputs or cold sounding OP-Amps). Warranty is 5 years and Benchmark has free 30 day tryout/lease program. People who travel a lot take USB Benchmark with a Laptop computer and top quality headphones (Benchmark has decent two headphone amps built in) to have high-end audio on the run.

what is dxd?