Benchmark Dac1 Versions

One other point for you to accept or discard: my Benchmark DAC1 USB opened up a bit when I tried a Furutech power cord. I'm personally a big believer in Furutech products, so I may be hearing what I want to hear. But for me, the improvement was in the 15-20% range...not dramatic, but not miniscule, either.

4est - I'm surprised that you could hear any difference between toslink and coax. Benchmark has few Hz jitter bandwidth and at the frequencies of interest - kHz has in order of -100dB supression of the jitter. Typical jitter artifacts (sidebands) are at about -80dB (but still very audible since not harmonically related to root frequency). Combine two and you'll get -180dB jitter. I cannot hear any difference between Aiport Express with toslink and DVD player with coax but I will try it again. Sound with toslink is as detailed and clean as it gets. People often compare toslink to coax using two devices where one of them is not "bit transparent" (digital volume control, DSP processing etc). I don't dispute what you're hearing - I'm just surpised.

Different DACs, different sources, different cables and they all sounded "soft" or lacking PRaT...