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In Reply to: Benchmark announces USB DAC posted by edward on February 15, 2007 at 16:46:50:
That seems steep.
Follow Ups:
The $300 price difference is due to several new features relative to the DAC1.1. High-current output drivers. The balanced output drivers are designed to handle low impedance, high capacitance, and/or high-inductance loads without the THD+N suffering.
2. Auto-sleep mode. When no digital input is present for more then 15 sec, the unit will enter auto-sleep mode, and will re-awaken when the signal is present again, or when the front panel switch is engaged.
3. Option to mute output upon headphone insertion. This means the output will mute when you stick the headphone jack in. This option can be turned off or on, depending on your preference.
4. Two gain-range settings for headphone amplifier. This accomodates headphones of different impedances.
5. 96/24 capable native USB interface. This is not an off-the-shelf USB solution. This is unprecedented with regard to capability and scope. We spent significant amounts of time developing and tweaking this custom interface solution to gracefully handle high-resolution, native USB audio streaming.
Hope this helps!
Elias Gwinn
Engineer
Benchmark Media System, Inc
http://www.BenchmarkMedia.com
Why wouldn't you include this feature on the basic Dac1 as well? The USB soluion is nice but not particullarly practical for many applications. For example using a computer as a source for a high end audio system usually necessitates the use some kind of control interface such as a squeezebox (since the PC is often in another room to reduce noise). That said I'd only be interested in the basic Dac1 and am unhappy that it doesn't have high current drivers.
The DAC1 USB was designed to have several features which are not available with the DAC1. The high-current output drivers, the high-resolution native USB interface, auto-sleep mode, and new headphone operation features are all included into the price. These features are available to DAC1 USB users.Feel free to call or post with any more questions!!
Thanks,
Elias Gwinn
Electrical Engineer
Benchmark Media Systems, Inc
www.BenchmarkMedia.com
1-315-437-6300
$300 is a good investment if you:1/ compare to a DAC1 mod to give I2S interface
2/ compare to adding a USB/SPDIF interrface plus a good coaxial cable with the bonus of all kinds of problem associated with the USB/SPDIF (e.g. clicks and pops + not knowing whether it is truly bid perfect).
3/ compare to transporter in terms of the quality of sound you will get.
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