Benchmark Dac3 vs ‘Higher end’ Dacs

[toddrhodes]

4 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

I owned a DAC3 B for several months and my impression was that ESS DAC chips were capable of a level of fidelity that I never gave them credit for.  "Sabre glare" and all that.

 

I sold it when I first heard the Topping D50 S (not the previous D50).  Was the Topping better?  No.  But it was damn close to me.  Once again, that ESS chip was delivering just jaw dropping performance and the support circuitry just did the right thing and "got out of the way", just like in the DAC3.  I sold the Benchmark DAC because a good friend really wanted it and I had borrowed a D50 S almost the same day.  I liked the D50 S so much I was willing to give up the DAC3.  I figured I sold it for more than I paid for the D50 S, so win/win.  My friend is happy, and so am I.

 

The AK chips are marketed to sound "smoother", but for me, there's just no beating a well implemented, modern ESS DAC chip.

 

Oh, and when I want to take the D50 S up a notch or two, I use HQPlayer.  One thing I almost never hear about the DAC3 is that it won't go higher than DSD64.  To me, that is the Achilles Heel of the DAC3.

 

 

 

The story of my time with the DAC3 (DAC3L in my case) is virtually the same. I can't say a single bad thing about how the DAC3 presented music. It was, IMO, transparent. And I, too, had the same sort of preconception about ESS DACs and being "hard" or having that glare you mentioned. DAC3 didn't have any of that. In a lot of ways, DAC3 kinda proved to me that a lot of what I thought about newer DACs was just poorly derived conclusions.

 

So, that DSD64 and HQP thing bit me as well. I could hear the potential in HQP but I also knew that I had the PC horsepower and technical knowledge to push that much higher, but the hard limit DAC3 imposes on PCM and DSD was why, ultimately, I went to a Denafrips DAC. NOS mode in their new "DSP" board will do 1.5 PCM or DSD1024. It's overkill of course but I had a feeling I would be able to really see what HQPlayer could do through something like that.

 

And so I did with an entry level DF DAC. And so impressed was I, that I went out and bought a higher end one. And I'm thrilled. But it was really DAC3 that kinda opened my eyes, and got me to even see how good it could sound by adding HQPlayer. 

 

I can almost guarantee - if it had supported at least DSD256 or maybe even just a much higher PCM ceiling, I'd probably still have it.