Shame on you guys... no responses yet?

Well it came in today.

WARNING: For any future DAC1 owners... make sure that you check that the rear output switch is set to "Variable" BEFORE hook-up, otherwise you'll be sending full-power to your speakers. This happened to me. Scared the daylights out of me. The manual says that it's set to "Variable" from the get-go... well mine wasn't. I frantically fumbled my way to my Mackie's power switch to shut them down... as they scream and shouted... woofers a crankin'... OL lights a blazin'.

So I carefully rigged the internal jumpers for -20 operation (recommened with high-powered active monitors). Connected my Marantz straight to Coax and I was impressed.

Sound stage is firm, balanced, and very focused. Imaging is superb.

Immediately I noticed the high-end was real, precise, fine, highly defined... almost as if speakers disappeared. Very sweet, and refined high-end.

None of the low-mid smear associated with cheap converters. Very precise low-end and mid-range... easy to sift through dense mixes. Very controlled.

I don't have a top-notch studio, but the DAC1 is a huge step forward for my back-end/monitoring. I'm really happy with results. Good investment.

I have used the Lucid DA2496 and find the DAC1 smokes it. Looking forward to Benchmark's ADC1 offering.

Bowisc