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But that to me is infinitely confusing, as in the words of the Audio Critic (objectivist audio publication)
"It should be obvious from the above discussion, at least to those familiar with The Audio Critic, that the Benchmark DAC1 has no sound of its own, transparently passing on to its output the quality of its input. Whatever sonic peculiarities may perchance be audible are due to the input signal, not the DAC1 circuit. Even if the circuit were a lot less perfect, that would still be the case. Absolute sonic transparency is a concept innocent audiophiles are uncomfortable with, believing that all audio components—CD players, preamplifiers, amplifiers, tuners, all of them—exhibit varying degrees of soundstaging, front-to-back depth, grain, air, etc. That it isn’t so, except in the case of loudspeakers, is a fact calmly accepted by professional engineers but not by the high-end pundits and high-end manufacturers, who would be out of business if the truth were to sink in universally."
So hence if you don't like the Benchmark, I am forced to conclude you simply don't like the music as recorded. Again, it's kinda hard to word this without coming across as an attack on your listening preferences, which it really isn't meant to be - see earlier comments on colouration. But I can't see how sound that is mechanically perfect can sound off unless:
1. It's a bad recording.
2. Aforementioned variation in preferences.
3. You have decided to hate the sound in advance and are led by bias, which I already dismissed out of hand.
Having said that, would be intrigued if you could link a comprehensive set of measurements from some DACs you DO enjoy.
The amount of respect I have for the Audio Critic and his "reviews" is nil. I've read that review before, and if I remember correctly he devoted all of one paragraph to describing the sound of the Benchmark, much of which was spent making fun of people who rely on critical listening skills, and deriding the idea that a DAC with solid measurements can even have a sound. He seems to view audio component design as some sort of sonic pass/fail system, where once your measurements achieve a certain degree, your design has "passed" and its musical output will be "perfect". Therefore, all components which have "passed" will be identical in their signature. This: "believing that all audio components—CD players, preamplifiers, amplifiers, tuners, all of them—exhibit varying degrees of soundstaging, front-to-back depth, grain, air, etc. That it isn’t so except in the case of loudspeakers" says it all. It shows just stunning levels of ignorance about the process of reproducing sound.
I don't think there is such a thing as perfect design or perfect sound, and certainly the idea that you can achieve perfection with a $1,000 DAC is laughable.
As for the measured performance of DACs that I like, two that spring to mind are the Theta Gen VIII, and Mark Levinson 360S. Both are what I would consider to be pretty neutral, and certainly not excessively bright or bleached like the Benchmark. The Gen VIII is a bit bass lean (fixed in Series 2), but otherwise these DACs despite their age can smash brand new supposedly "perfect" DACs to bits when you put down the measuring tools and actually listen to some music. Oh, and I bet you and Mr. Audio Critic will get a kick out of this little tidbit about the differences between the original Levinson 360 and the 360S:
• the No.360S has four 32-bit SHARC DSPs, the No.360 two;
• the No.360S has four-layer cyanate-ester printed-circuit boards; the No.360 has two-layer fiberglass-epoxy boards;
• the No.360S has separate, discrete power regulation for its two channels, with OSCON caps for local reservoirs; and
• the No.360S uses hand-selected, bulk metal-foil resistors (calibrated to a tolerance of ±0.0002%), while the No.360 uses Vishay potentiometers.
The result of all these enhancements? The No.360 and No.360S have absolutely identical specs!
Yes, the 360S's fairly considerable sonic improvements over the vanilla 360 are somehow nowhere to be found in the all conquering measurements, which by the way can be found below.
http://www.stereophile.com/content/theta-digital-generation-viii-da-converter-measurements
http://www.stereophile.com/content/mark-levinson-no360-da-converter-measurements