Anyone tried the Benchmark

I have a Benchmark Dac1 (non-usb) with the HD 650's. I primarilly use the Benchmark with my Squeezebox. The Benchmark, in my system, on very good recordings, sounds very, very good. It is not thin, bright or analytical. I also have an Esoteric X03SE, which has caused me months of pondering a new DAC because the $950 benchmrk does not sound as good to me as the $8,500 Esoteric, BUT, I must say, the Benchmark has no business sounding as good as it does for the money it costs. I did upgrade the fuse, have great interconnects and power cord, which, I believe, makes a difference because I have never felt it thin, bright or analytical, as quite a few posters have. I do believe that is just the revealing nature of the DAC. It does sound great with the headphones as well-very well, actually. Very realistic soundstage, dynamic, lots and lots of detail.

Thanks for the positive review, Cerrot. I have pretty much decided to give this system a go. If it's not for me I can always return it and go with a tube set-up of some kind. I envision keeping the HD650s regardless. I put my CD player up for sale in the classifieds today and will likely put my tube amp and speakers up tonight. I hate to see my old system go, but I have not been able to listen to it properly in several years and recently had to box it up because my former listening room is now a play room for my 2 year old daughter. The Benchmark/Dynaudio/HD650 rig will at least give me the opportunity to listen to my music collection again.
-Mike

Cerrot - Yes, it is revealing and very natural sounding (that is also unforgiving on some recordings). Benchmark's technical director John Siau did not want Benchmark to sound warm since it screws up more complex harmonic structures like piano's.

Benchmark, at the very beginning had opinion of thin sounding because it had different op-amps. Not really different but made by Phillips vs. newer ones made by Texas Instr. Phillips/Signetics factory burned down around 2001 and they sold NE5532 license to Texas Instruments. TI redesigned die making it larger and fuller sounding. You can recognize TI amps by logo that is outline of Texas map. Another problem of early DAC1s was very high output impedance on unbalanced outputs.

New Benchmarks USB and Pre use LM4562 in output stages making balanced output impedance lower, especially at -10dB where it was on the high side (audible).