Levinson 360 vs Benchmark

Patrick, that's exactly right. It amounted to...I was personally willing to take the hit, and I enjoy the gear more as a result. At 5x the cost of those mods, I wouldn't have been willing to take the hit no matter how significant the improvements.

I' shopping right now. I hop to find a used DAC at a fair price. I've pretty much narrowed it down to the Benchmark or a Levinson. I would need to get the Levinson at a very good price so the odds are against me in that regard. With repairs on Levinson gear being what they are I need to consider the possibility that it is a throw away item in the case of a breakdown.
There aren't any Benchmarks out there right now that are priced right so I'm playing the waiting game. All I really need is a plain ol' DAC1 but I'll probably try for a USB, there seems to be a consensus that the analog section sound better for some reason.
I did consider a Wyred DAC but there’s not any third party lab test yet that I could find and it is rather new to the market. I may ultimately wish had had gone with the Wyred; time will tell.
The Benchmark measures so well It’s hard to imagine anything coming along that blows it out of the water in the near future, at least that’s my reasoning to justify my current mindset.
I’m still more than happy to hear from others about any recommendations or opinions that they wish to share and why my thought process is defective. (grin)

The new Absolute Sound has a review of the new Wyred DAC 2.

Thanks Dtc -
I tried absolutesound dot com and it's seems to be down right now.
I live is the sticks outside Austin so I'll make a trip there in a day or two and see if any of the bookstores carry the magazine. I'm looking forward to the read.

There ia guy on AA (rp1 something...do a search on pro audio you'll find him) that sold his Levinson after hearing and buying a Benchmmark.