Benchmark or Antelope?


Looking at these two (2) DACs and asking for some opinions from the student body. Will be used in a "Mac" environment. As an aside, I've heard really good things about Mytek, but it looks like "drivers" need to be fiddled with and that is a turn-off for me. I'm at the 1500 dollar (new)
price point and the referenced units come in around that figure.
lindisfarne
I still own an Antelope Zodiac Gold and IMO it sounds wonderful and is brilliantly engineered. I use it as a passive preamp (via the volume control on the analog side) in my all digital rig. Having said that, however, it is really more DAC than I require (I don't play files at higher res than 192k) and it's a little on the expensive side.

I have been looking at the new Teac UD-501 - it sounds great and is well-made, but does not offer volume/gain controls and no remote. It's the same same for the Schiit Gungnir. I have also heard the M2Tech Joplin; very nice, but I do not find it to be the sonic equal of the Zodiac Gold. The specs for the Empirical Audio Overdrive SE looks great, but it seems stupidly expensive for what it is.

I have an Antelope Zodiac + on my desktop and really enjoy it.

Like Bodotes, I also use mine as a "preamp" to adust volume and switch between inputs including PC, Mac and television.

It sounds great and works perfectly - I never think about it which is one of the highest compliments I can give to a component.
I've got Mytek 192. It has state of the art volume control. Didn't get a chance to test its DSD capabilities yet.