[John Stone]

On 9/11/09 10:38 AM, in article , "ST"
wrote:

On Sep 8, 1:45*am, John Stone wrote:


I'm still running a Theta Gen Va Balanced, which has to be pushing 13 yrs
old. Tomorrow I will receive, for evaluation, a Benchmark DAC1 HDR. It will
be interesting to see if there is any appreciable audible improvement. I
have my doubts..

Hi John,

Did you get your Benchmark? Please provide us your evaluation.

I did get it and have done some preliminary evaluation. I have so far only
level matched by ear (1kHz test tone set to the same level for both dacs).
Even with this crude level matching, the differences between the Benchmark
and Theta are very subtle, and reliably picking out which is which is
already quite difficult. At this stage, the Benchmark might be a tiny bit
brighter, but that may just be due to remaining level mismatch. I plan next
to level match them with a meter on the outputs within .1-.2dB of each other
and try the comparison again. I'm also going to do a frequency response test
to see if there is any substantial response difference between them. I'll
report when finished.