DAC1 - Holy Crap. This is unbelievable!!!

[flexoffset]

I don't mean to turn this into an ad, but few things I hear nowadays really change my whole direction. The DAC-1 does.

I just plugged my Benchmark DAC-1 in and words can't start to describe the difference. I hear subtle things going on in the music I never heard before.

I was expecting a HUGE difference and was blown out of the water. Huge doesn't start to describe it.

The most subtle moves with the eq are noticeable. There is an air and openness that I never heard before. There is a crispness that is not annoying. There's a clarity that is unprecidented.

There seems to be even more slience between the hits of the drums (I know that sounds wild but it's true.) The distortion on the guitars sound more 'granular' (which good in my case).

I knew the DAC1 was good before I bought it but the difference is completely unbelievable. Really.

I am speechless now....going back to remix everything I ever did.....

This converter does not disappoint.
Very Very Very nice job Benchmark.

[Etnier]

I'm happy that you're happy, but a little puzzled. You're describing a euphonic effect: the DAC is giving you a more pleasing monitoring experience. Ideally, it would give you a more accurate one. That's been my experience in the past few months.

[el cochino]

Originally posted by flexoffset
I don't mean to turn this into an ad, but few things I hear nowadays really change my whole direction. The DAC-1 does.

I just plugged my Benchmark DAC-1 in and words can't start to describe the difference. I hear subtle things going on in the music I never heard before.

I was expecting a HUGE difference and was blown out of the water. Huge doesn't start to describe it.

The most subtle moves with the eq are noticeable. There is an air and openness that I never heard before. There is a crispness that is not annoying. There's a clarity that is unprecidented.

There seems to be even more slience between the hits of the drums (I know that sounds wild but it's true.) The distortion on the guitars sound more 'granular' (which good in my case).

I knew the DAC1 was good before I bought it but the difference is completely unbelievable. Really.

I am speechless now....going back to remix everything I ever did.....

This converter does not disappoint.
Very Very Very nice job Benchmark.

Now, if they could only make a 16 channel version in the MOTU price range, I swear I'll never ever complain about anything again for the rest of my life!!!

[woods]

How are you using it?
Where in the chain?

W

[Wiggy Neve Slut]

I SO cant wait to get mine!!! looking forward to hearing new things.

Gaggin in anticipation
Wiggy

[faeflora]

What were you using before?

[De chromium cob]

Originally posted by Etnier
I'm happy that you're happy, but a little puzzled. You're describing a euphonic effect: the DAC is giving you a more pleasing monitoring experience. Ideally, it would give you a more accurate one. That's been my experience in the past few months.

I agree- I've found the DAC1 to have a slightly enhanced sound to it....Its good, but I think it tends to 'enbiggen' stuff...

[atticus]

Originally posted by De chromium cob
I agree- I've found the DAC1 to have a slightly enhanced sound to it....Its good, but I think it tends to 'enbiggen' stuff...

Well the decrease in jitter and distortion definitely makes the soundstage more accurate. The converter itself is not hyped in any way but the removal of bad digital artifacts does make it sound better. It is possible to be accurate and euphonic at the same time. Thanks.

[De chromium cob]

Originally posted by atticus
Well the decrease in jitter and distortion definitely makes the soundstage more accurate. The converter itself is not hyped in any way but the removal of bad digital artifacts does make it sound better. It is possible to be accurate and euphonic at the same time. Thanks.

That very well may be- and please dont take offense....but thats what my ears told me after comparing the converters to the ones I had available at the time which consisted of-

-Apogee PSX-100
-HEDD 192
-Troisi (The one in the Dangerous monitor)
-Masterlink (craaaaap)
-MOTU 24I/O
-DAC1

I really dont worry about the reason it sounds the way it does, because you could tell me there was some magical pixies in there fighting the horrible jitter monster and I couldnt prove you wrong, but it seems to sound just a bit 'hyped' to me. In a very unscientific test, the Troisi seemed to sound the most like what I feed into the computer from the half inch deck.

[atticus]

Originally posted by De chromium cob
That very well may be- and please dont take offense....but thats what my ears told me after comparing the converters to the ones I had available at the time which consisted of-

-Apogee PSX-100
-HEDD 192
-Troisi (The one in the Dangerous monitor)
-Masterlink (craaaaap)
-MOTU 24I/O
-DAC1

I really dont worry about the reason it sounds the way it does, because you could tell me there was some magical pixies in there fighting the horrible jitter monster and I couldnt prove you wrong, but it seems to sound just a bit 'hyped' to me. In a very unscientific test, the Troisi seemed to sound the most like what I feed into the computer from the half inch deck.

Dude, you'll never offend me by being honest.

[Eee-jut]

Holy shit, what where you using before, a soundblaster live?

Really, this doesn't tell us much without us knowing what you were using before - and where in the chain ---- monitoring? - mixing?

[ISedlacek]

Have somebody tried to compare DAC-1 with Apogee mini DAC ? This would be very interesting. Many claim that Apogee sounds yet better

[flexoffset]

I'm happy that you're happy, but a little puzzled. You're describing a euphonic effect: the DAC is giving you a more pleasing monitoring experience. Ideally, it would give you a more accurate one. That's been my experience in the past few months.

Etnier, it is both a 'euphonic' and a 'euphoric' experience.
I can't attest to the accuracy yet because I am a little thin on my monitoring setup. From what I have heard so far based on a headphone comparison, the imaging is wonderfully spacious and pinpoint in accuracy. The low end is amazingly clear. I can't imagine what the Sennheisers will sound like.

Example...I have a song with a double-kick bass hitting sixteenths around 120BPM and prior to the DAC-1 it was just a rumble. Now that the DAC-1 is hooked up, I actually had to eq the kick to take out some high-end because I could now hear the attack of each kick drum clearly.

I will be getting some Sennheiser HD600's in today and then I can better check the accuracy. I will be buying some ADAMS early next year if all goes well.

I bought the DAC-1 as my first piece of what is considered 'high-end' electronic audio recording gear. I have made a quantum leap by buying the DAC-1.

I've probably only got $30,000 in my whole studio (not including the building I'm working on).

My monitoring signal chain is this....please don't laugh...it is going to improve vastly in the future. You gotta start somewhere, right?

I use an M-Audio Delta 2496 card S/PDIF out and plug in to the DAC-1 using the BNC Coax connector. I have some cheap speakers I monitor through and I have an old pair of AKG cans that I monitor through.

Prior to the DAC-1, I was monitoring using the analog signal straight out from the M-Audio card.

I feel that the DAC-1 needed to be one of the first pieces of equipment I buy because once I hear what equipment really sounds like, I can begin work on the front-end of the chain.

I am slowly putting together a little studio to do music for local establishments and try to get in to scoring some local advertisements and even some locally-produced movies.

I have a small studio (equipment-wise) in a small market to help supplement my income and I have hopes it will be my primary source within ten years....who knows.

Being small is no excuse for not wanting my product to sound as good as it possibly can, but right now, what I've got is all I've got.

[faeflora]

Originally posted by De chromium cob
I agree- I've found the DAC1 to have a slightly enhanced sound to it....Its good, but I think it tends to 'enbiggen' stuff...

When you said Enbiggen I think you meant Embiggen. Enbiggen is not a word silly!

[stuntmixer]

whadddya mean, it's a perfectly corpulent word..

[dtobocman]

Here's how I describe the improvement that my DAC1 has made to my monitoring -- I can hear the natural ambience around the drummer in a secondary drumloop that sits in the midground of one of my mixes.

It's ****ing scary to finally hear this level of detail in your own work.

I too am experiencing a euphonious difference with the DAC1. I bought a coax to optical convertor so I can monitor CDs digitally without moving cables -- good investment.

With my DAC1 and my new Blue Sky monitors, most of the decisions I'm making are now very obvious (oh, let's carve out a little low mid here, add a little top there, pan this over here. Done). Quick and fun is how I think of mixing now.

[De chromium cob]

Originally posted by faeflora
When you said Enbiggen I think you meant Embiggen. Enbiggen is not a word silly!

Wow- you have alot of time on your hands....I'll send all my posts to you for spell checking from now on, ok?

[flexoffset]

I can finally hear the entire reverb tail off into silence. All the parameters actually make a noticeable difference (especially density, diffusion, etc.).

I now can discern the quality of different reverbs used in different songs - which is something I couldn't do before.

Now, ALL the knob tweaking I do in my DAW plug-ins actually make it to my ears.

[Schnert]

I was also kinda "scared" when I first got the DAC-1...well, I'm the sceptical guy. It sounded different from all the other converters I had, in that it seemed to have less low mids. Then I saw the message from Benchmark, telling me that I might experience excactly this, and that it was because I was no longer hearing jitter induced "grunge". Still, I thought it was strange that the low mids were pretty similar in every other converter I heard, good and bad, but the DAC-1 was different. I was probably scared that this would translate into my mixes being too low mid heavy..... Haven't done that many mixes with the DAC-1 yet, but so far they seem to translate well

[loudist]

Unfortunately herein lies the rub... unless one is playing your mix off of a Benchmark, they will not experience the same detail and clarity that you were reacting to, the subtleties will be smeared again.

The unfortunate fact is that you have to monitor off of 'standard issue' converters in order to 'compensate' for their inelegance, sort of like a crappy set of speakers that are real world references.

[Jax]

Originally posted by faeflora
When you said Enbiggen I think you meant Embiggen. Enbiggen is not a word silly!

Lol!

The word is "Ermbiggin!"




Sheesh!

[dtobocman]

Originally posted by loudist
Unfortunately herein lies the rub... unless one is playing your mix off of a Benchmark, they will not experience the same detail and clarity that you were reacting to, the subtleties will be smeared again.

The unfortunate fact is that you have to monitor off of 'standard issue' converters in order to 'compensate' for their inelegance, sort of like a crappy set of speakers that are real world references.

This all might be true, but the point is that during the mix you, the mixer, can hear better, so you can better choose the frequencies to tweak, positions to pan to, reverb levels to set, and anomolies to correct. Then when it's played back in the "real world", the entire mix is much better than it would be if you mixed on crap convertors and/or speakers.

Let's not confuse the euphony with the utility. (only looks like tobacco).

[ghoost]

Okay I can't help myself ...

If you really want to appreciate the DAC-1 ...
go get some of the Benchmark AD convertors

they're also jitter free btw

[Bob Olhsson]

Originally posted by loudist
Unfortunately herein lies the rub... unless one is playing your mix off of a Benchmark, they will not experience the same detail and clarity that you were reacting to, the subtleties will be smeared again.

Actually the Benchmark is clocked a lot more like a regular CD player than any workstation or most outboard converters are. I played around with this a lot in the '90s and pretty much found that low-jitter converters translated a lot better than AES/EBU/SPDIF-driven converters or workstations. Digital gear patched together with some kind of an external clock running a DAC is totally unlike what goes on in a CD player. One of the most fascinating things about my DAC-1 experience has been that things translate to the factory Bose player in my car a lot better than anything I've used in a studio before.

If the Benchmark made everything sound good, it would be one thing but what it does is make the differences between things a lot more focused and less ambiguous, especially the low-end. I think one of the biggest problems we have today is people over-compensating for the problems in their D to As.

[Jules]

See how your work turns out & client reaction after getting a DAC-1....

It really has bumped me up a few notches...

I even hate mixing a little less now!

[Fletcher]

In many ways the DAC-1 opened my eyes [ears?] to a whole different level of audio... the next step forward in my world was the addition of a Lavry 4496... which in no way dimishes my love for the DAC-1... but in blind, level matched taste tests... the 4496 came in by a nose. Nice horsey.

[with that said it should be noted that there are 3x DAC-1's in use in my world at all times... that the dig output on my DAW actually routes to 3 different D/A's... all of which sound a bit different... all of which give me a different and interesting perspective]

[Teacher]

Originally posted by Fletcher
In many ways the DAC-1 opened my eyes [ears?] to a whole different level of audio... the next step forward in my world was the addition of a Lavry 4496... which in no way dimishes my love for the DAC-1... but in blind, level matched taste tests... the 4496 came in by a nose. Nice horsey.

so what put the lavry over the top besides the price....and where would you put the radar dacs if you thru them in the mix?

[flexoffset]

I just got the Sennheiser HD600's in last night and I couldn't get any work done because I would just stop and listen to things I hadn't heard before through the DAC-1 and HD600 combination.

I'm still in a euphoric state of mind.

I guess it's like if you were sixteen and Santa Clause just delivered in a shiny red Ferrari. You'd just want to sit in it a while and smell the leather.

I guess the real work starts today and I can get down to business with it.

[De chromium cob]

Originally posted by Jax
Lol!

The word is "Ermbiggin!"




Sheesh!

Its actually from The Simpsons- as in- "A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man."

And the song "Jebediah Springfield Theme"

It's that team of Jebediah Springfield
Whip those horses, let that wagon roll
That a people might embiggen America
That a man might embiggen his soul
His soul, his soul!

wow- I guess I have alot of time on MY hands....

[flexoffset]

Here's another word I couldn't find in the dictionary...it was on the Futurama cartoon where Bender the robot accidentally joined the mob.

Mob robot's assistant: ''Management's 'intragnizance' towards the striking workers...''

Cartoons must be good at finding new applications for the letters in our alphabet.


fwiw