Hadden
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2003
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Not sure which forum this should go into. I just received the Benchmark yesterday, and am at the getting to know it stage. There has been some question about the quality of the internal amp on the Dac1, so this morning I decided to do a concentrated comparison using a Classical and a Pop cd I know very well. Now this is obviously not a scientific blind A/B, and is a tentative initial impression. So don't rake me over the coals. I will be doing more listening over the next while.
I tried to level match by ear as close as I could, then would listen to a short passage of music, about 10 seconds or so, about five times in a row repeated quickly to try to imprint all the sounds and character as much as possible; then I would switch over immediately to see if I could spot clear differences. Sometimes I would start with the Dac1 amp, and go through the repeated cycle, and sometimes I would start with the Larocco Headcode.
At first I thought the Dac1 was duller sounding and had an edginess to the treble, and the Larocco had more defined powerful bass and an openness to the sound. But listening more and more I found I became unsure, to the extent where I started to come to the conclusion I could not detect a difference between the amps, still assumng there was one at all. Right now they sound exactly the same to me as I do the back and forth. This is rather shocking to me as the Larocco is an expensive and well regarded unit and I presumed it would be vastly superior. Not so, so far. At one point while listening I believed I was listening to the Larocco and thought I detected a subtle superiority, or at least a distinction, and realized I was actually listening to the Benchmark!
I tried to level match by ear as close as I could, then would listen to a short passage of music, about 10 seconds or so, about five times in a row repeated quickly to try to imprint all the sounds and character as much as possible; then I would switch over immediately to see if I could spot clear differences. Sometimes I would start with the Dac1 amp, and go through the repeated cycle, and sometimes I would start with the Larocco Headcode.
At first I thought the Dac1 was duller sounding and had an edginess to the treble, and the Larocco had more defined powerful bass and an openness to the sound. But listening more and more I found I became unsure, to the extent where I started to come to the conclusion I could not detect a difference between the amps, still assumng there was one at all. Right now they sound exactly the same to me as I do the back and forth. This is rather shocking to me as the Larocco is an expensive and well regarded unit and I presumed it would be vastly superior. Not so, so far. At one point while listening I believed I was listening to the Larocco and thought I detected a subtle superiority, or at least a distinction, and realized I was actually listening to the Benchmark!