"With over 40 years as an audiophile and more than half those years as a hi-fi retailer, I feel I’ve finally put together a stereo that ticks all my sonic boxes. Those being in order of priority, dynamics, scale, tonal accuracy, fatigue free resolution and soundstage."

"For the last 25 years I’ve been fortunate to have a dedicated listening room. I use acoustic treatments from Real Traps, Vicoustic and Primeacoustic."

"My Benchmark components consist of the DAC3 B (connected to a Naim NDS streamer), LA4 line amplifier and two AHB2 power amplifiers run in bridged mono mode. All cables are Benchmark too."

"The Benchmark gear in my system has brought what I have wanted in my list of sonic priorities as listed above and then some. They have delivered way beyond what I thought could be possible in my system in my room."

"I’m delighted and stunned daily as my vast music collection comes to life on a whole new level."

- Ricky Dasler, Living Sound, Nelson New Zealand.

"What are the Latest Advancements in Mastering?"

"Geoff Pesche weighs in on how the mastering team at Abbey Road Studios achieve first-class results." - Mix with the Masters

"The biggest sonic improvement in mastering in the last 5 or 6 years is D/A and A/D converters and that's very very important - what you have at the front and the back of the chain."

"We use fairly new Benchmark converters front and back."

"Abbey Road like a uniformity between the rooms so all of the rooms have the same A/D and D/A conversion."

- Geoff Pesche, Mastering Engineer, Abbey Road Studios

"A Damn Good, No-Frills Digital Converter"

"Benchmark Media Systems’ no-nonsense approach to all things audio is rare today."

"Uniformly Good"

"This is a DAC that’s uniformly good at everything. It resolves well, has good imaging properties."

"It makes a balanced, honest sound that allows you to sit and listen to music for hours. That is what makes Benchmark’s products consistently popular with audio engineers. You don’t want ‘bright’ if you sit at a mixing desk 10 hours a day. "

"Leave No Trace"

"It also has the latest version of Benchmark’s jitter attenuation system (UltraLock3) and doubles down on the digital demon with its multi-mode asynchronous USB system."

"Benchmark also uses the distortion compensation facilities built into the ESS chip to reduce second and third order distortion."

"The net result is a DAC that delivers lower distortion, lower noise, less passband ripple, faster signal switching and locking onto signals and a more linear frequency response."

"The Benchmark Media Systems DAC3 B is very much in the ‘leave no trace’ school of good audio."

- Alan Sircom, hi-fi+

Would you put a Washing Machine in your Listening Room?

If the answer is no, you may be surprised to discover that the distortion produced by your power amplifier may be louder than the noise produced by a major appliance.

Don't believe me? Take a look at Stereophile's test reports:

We selected 7 power amplifiers from Stereophile's top list of recommended amplifiers.

We took Stereophile's "THD+N vs. Power" plots for each, and replotted the data in a format that shows the loudness of the THD+N at the listening position.

The results are shocking!

Amplifier THD+N is louder than expected!

The distortion from your amplifier may be louder than a washing machine on the spin cycle, or it may be totally silent. How does yours perform? The answer is hidden in Stereophile's THD+N plots.

This application note reveals the hidden truth:

"The Distortion from your Power Amplifier may be Louder than a Washing Machine!"

I know, it sounds crazy, but this is what the measurements show!

Most digital playback devices include digital interpolators. These interpolators increase the sample rate of the incoming audio to improve the performance of the playback system. Interpolators are essential in oversampled sigma-delta D/A converters, and in sample rate converters. In general, interpolators have vastly improved the performance of audio D/A converters by eliminating the need for analog brick wall filters. Nevertheless, digital interpolators have brick wall digital filters that can produce unique distortion signatures when they are overloaded.

10% Distortion

An interpolator that performs wonderfully when tested with standard test tones, may overload severely when playing the inter-sample musical peaks that are captured on a typical CD. In our tests, we observed THD+N levels exceeding 10% while interpolator overloads were occurring. The highest levels were produced by devices that included ASRC sample rate converters.

The Audiophile Wild West

Audiophiles live in the wild west. $495 will buy an "audiophile fuse" to replace the $1 generic fuse that came in your audio amplifier. $10,000 will buy a set of "audiophile speaker cables" to replace the $20 wires you purchased at the local hardware store. We are told that these $10,000 cables can be improved if we add a set of $300 "cable elevators" to dampen vibrations. You didn't even know that you needed elevators!  And let's not forget to budget at least $200 for each of the "isolation platforms" we will need under our electronic components. Furthermore, it seems that any so-called "audiophile power cord" that costs less than $100, does not belong in a high-end system. And, if cost is no object, there are premium versions of each that can be purchased by the most discerning customers.  A top-of-the line power cord could run $5000. One magazine claims that "the majority of listeners were able to hear the difference between a $5 power cable and a $5,000 power cord". Can you hear the difference? If not, are you really an audiophile?