Used MF Trivista 21 or Benchmark Dac1?

Trivista is less digital sounding than Benchmark but Bel Canto Dac3 is nice step further of Trivista.

Can any of you explain the lights in the footers of the Trivista21? I've seen them red at startup, then amber or blue when playing music. What's the amber vs blue indicate?

Blue is fully warmed up. The other colors indicate how close it is to full warm up. I was recently auditioning it in a friends system and he insisted on listening right away. He began by telling me how bad it was and as it warmed up he liked it better and better and almost bought himself. There are tubes available from other sources than MF, I believe, there are for my NuVista M3.

"Can any of you explain the lights in the footers of the Trivista21? I've seen them red at startup, then amber or blue when playing music. What's the amber vs blue indicate? "

The red is for start up, amber for o.k. listen to, and blue for best sounding. I had the Trivista 21 awhile back and thought that it was very nice sounding DAC and nicer sounding than the Benchmark DAC USB. Maybe a bit tubey to some listener but it is smoother and more enjoyable than the Benchmark. The Benchmark to my ears was a bit bright and analytical but might have better details than the Trivista DAC. However, my Exemplar 2900 walked all over the Trivisa 21 DAC + Sony SCD-777ES as a transport in redbook playback.

Has anybody here compared the MF trivista 21 the to the PS Audio Digital Link III?