Has anyone try the Benchmark DAC1 Preamp?

I know somebody who added an old Krell PAM-1 to his Benchmark DAC1 and said that it made an improvement.

The integration of a preamp and DAC makes no sense to me. I would rather have the DAC integrated with the transport. Reasons:

- analog signals do not benefit as much from short signal paths anywhere near as much as digital signals
- every interface you add in a digital system increases jitter
- putting a preamp in a DAC means that even more of your analog signal is exposed to high freq digital noise
- digital preamps are mostly lousy and should be avoided
- analog preamps are better anyway, and you are better off having a seperate analog preamp than to have it built into the DAC for so many reasons. If you are going to have an analog volume control - why have it built into the DAC?

I can't think of any good reasons to have a preamp built into the DAC. If you want a DAC, get a DAC ... but don't think that a built-in preamp in a DAC will be superior to a standalone pre. In almost all cases the standalone pre will be superior.

If you're referring to the DAC1 Pre, why not just eliminate your preamp from the system and go straight into the amp (if you have separates)?
regards, David

Ive lived with the Benchmark dac 1 as a pre-amp balanced driving a Jeff Rowland Digital amp. It actually sounded real good!