As my acoustic preferences have evolved with a few years in this hobby, I have come to realize that your average PC makes for a pretty lousy source component.  It’s full of electrical noise and (for many) only has 1 output option.  The noise laden USB port.   I have been a USB “denier” for a long time.  I firmly believed that “bits are bits” and that it did not matter how the bits and bytes got where they needed to go.  It was the job of the DAC to deal with whatever crappy signal it was fed and convert the stream of ones and zeros into analog...

This is a pretty long review.  For the benefit of those with short attention spans, let’s cut right to the chase.   The “entry level” Holo Spring DAC is good – very good!  It is transparent, detailed and handled just about every format I could throw at it.  With the level 1 DAC retailing for $900 less than the level 3; I think it’s a bargain. I found that the Level 1 Holo performs exceptionally well; especially in the non-oversampling mode (NOS).  I haven’t found a case where I preferred any of the oversampling modes to NOS mode.  I found the...

I’ll cut right to the chase: The BenchMark DAC 3 HGC is a sonic marvel and an engineer’s wet dream.   Overview & Comparison The Benchmark DAC3 is based on the ESS Technologies ES9028PRO chipset and is the younger brother to Benchmark’s well regarded ES9018 based DAC2.  ES9018 based DAC’s have been common for about 10 years now.  The ES9028PRO is still relatively new (as of Q4 2016) with just a few commercially available implementations.  (Notable implementations include the Exasound E32 DAC at  ~$3,500USD, the Resonessence Veritas at ~$2,900USD...

As part of the OPPO PM3 loaner program I had a chance to evaluate the PM3's for a few days.   Overall, I was very impressed with the packaging, build quality and finish.  The brushed aluminum is exquisite and the earpads & headband are soft & supple.  They fit my basketball-sized skull quite well.      The cable is sturdy and terminated with nice accents - great attention to detail.  The phono plug adapter fits well and provides a solid connection when using a desktop amplifier.   This headphone is geared towards high-end mobile play and I...