Benchmark Media Systems DAC1 HDR Preamplifier (TAS 204)

Giant-Killer

When Benchmark Media’s DAC1 digital to analog converter was introduced a few years ago, it not only garnered rave reviews, but those reviewers who performed rigorous laboratory tests only wound up confirming Benchmark’s claims that it was a virtually distortionless device. At the time Benchmark essentially serviced the professional audio market, where its products are widely used—it’s probably no exaggeration to say that at some point in the production of better than half of all digitally based music releases a Benchmark product is used for monitoring. But as happens every now and then, word gets out about really exceptional professional products—the original Rogers LS3/5a is a classic case in point—and soon audiophiles start buying them.

Although the DAC1 is designed principally as a DAC, it is outfitted with a headphone amplifier and a high quality volume pot, the latter enabling it to control headphone level and output level to an amplifier, but only for the digital source it is converting. Many audiophiles who purchased these units soon discovered that bypassing their own preamplifier made for even more transparent reproduction. This led Benchmark to introduce the DAC1 PRE, which adds two more coaxial inputs to the existing coaxial and TosLink inputs of the DAC1, plus a USB input and a stereo analog input, thus making it possible for audiophiles to hook up, say, their turntables (via phono preamplifiers) and their digital sources, including computers, all of which could be switched and level-controlled by the PRE. It’s hard to imagine Benchmark was here not looking beyond industry professionals to consumers. Many audiophiles, however, wanted all the DAC1 PRE had to offer plus the convenience of remote control operation, which brings me to the subject of this review. The new DAC1 HDR consists of a DAC1, with the expanded input selection of the DAC1 PRE, together with a remote control handset that operates volume, input selection, on/off, and mute functions. The “HDR” stands for “HDR VC,” a propriety motor driven Alps potentiometer that, quoting the manual, “avoids the dynamic range limitations of digital volume controls and the distortion and noise introduced by IC based analog volume controls.”

Inasmuch the DAC1, which constitutes the digital circuitry of the DAC1 HDR, is a known commodity, I shall not expend much print describing either its workings or its sound. I refer you instead to Robert Greene’s thorough review in TAS 183 (but see also my sidebar here). A man hardly given to hype or overstatement, REG judged the sonic performance so neutral, transparent, noise and distortion free, and source-accurate that he pronounced digital’s initial promise effectively realized: perfect sound, albeit within the Red Book CD standard. This correlates with my own experience of the DAC1, which I’ve used for some three years now with a variety of stand alone or integrated transports. According to Benchmark, the DAC1 circuitry inside the DAC1 HDR is identical to what is in the original DAC1, and my listening tests confirm this. Assuming a bit accurate transport, the DAC1 HDR reproduces your CDs with something approaching peerless accuracy. This doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll like what you hear, but that isn’t Benchmark’s concern—truth in reporting is. Inasmuch as there are many ways for the digital nasties to enter the chain from recording through processing through manufacturing, it’s perfectly understandable why accuracy as such may not be every audiophile’s highest priority. But if it is yours, you will have to spend a great deal more money to buy greater accuracy than what this Benchmark is capable of; and even then the improvements, such as they are, will be incremental rather than dramatic. (It remains a fact of life—a happy fact for audiophiles—that as regards electronic components, especially digital ones, advancements in technology constantly lower the price point for ever-higher performance.)

“Super-clean, super-clear, super-quiet, super-transparent.” These are the first notes I scribbled down several moments after I had recovered from the initial burst of Ingrid Fliter’s Steinway from her scintillatingly essayed program of the complete Chopin waltzes on EMI. She and her instrument are nicely captured with a good balance of focus and ambience such that when played back at moderate levels (“moderate” here means too loud for conversation), this recording affords a good row D or E perspective. Being in a piano mood, next up was Martha Argerich’s justly acclaimed performance of Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit (DG). Here the perspective is close up and very personal, with a wealth of detail on display, both musical and extra musical, from the delicacies of Argerich’s touch and phrasings to the pages of the scores being turned (at one point, just after the opening of the “Scarbo” movement, you can hear either the pianist’s or her page turner’s lips part). None of this extra musical detail, incidentally, is due to any brightness or edginess that inheres in the Benchmark circuitry, nor does it detract from the you are there experience of Argerich’s thrilling performance.