Benchmark’s “Feedback Newsletter” is part of a dialog between Benchmark’s customers and our engineering staff. We attempt to address technical topics that are of current interest to our customers or the audio industry at large. Whenever we publish a white paper or technical guide you will see it first in “Feedback Newsletter”. While the primary focus is always technical, our readers are always the first to receive news on new developments, products and events. Many readers provide feedback (or “close the loop”) by posting questions and comments on the “Benchmark Technology Forum”, by calling 1-800-BNCHMRK, or by emailing feedback@benchmarkmedia.com Enjoy…and keep in touch! We value your feedback!
The circuits used to drive headphones are often added to a product without careful consideration of the difficult loads presented by high-quality headphones. The most common circuit is an opamp driver followed by a 30-Ohm series resistor. The seri...
Recording Engineers and Audiophiles often distrust audio measurements and specifications. It is not uncommon to hear claims that a product measures poorly but sounds good. Occasionally we also hear claims that a product measures well but sounds ba...
When Benchmark unveiled UltraLock™, it caused quite a stir. Benchmark claimed that this proprietary clock-syncing system made their converters immune to jitter. UltraLock™ keeps jitter-induced distortion at or below -135 dB FS (well be...
We are all too familiar with the criticisms of digital audio. We have heard digital audio described as harsh, brittle, lifeless, tense, cold, and non-musical. Perhaps each of us can add our own adjectives to this list. We are surrounded by poor-quali...
Benchmark DAC1 converters use upsampling techniques to improve the quality of the digital to analog conversion. Benchmark’s choice of 110 kHz is slightly unorthodox. It may seem more logical to upsample by 2X or 4X and convert at standard sam...
Variable-pitch features add versatility to CD players. Unfortunately, these features usually create jitter problems. Benchmark’s UltraLock™ jitter-attenuation system provides a unique solution that is fully compatible with var...
Absolutely … if:
1. Jitter is adequately attenuated
2. The interface supports 24-bit audio
3. The interface is “frequency agile” so that it can respond to sample-rate change requests originating from the computer
4. The interface s...
A/D and D/A converters require very low-jitter clocks to achieve 20-bit to 24-bit precision. In contrast, digital audio interfaces such as S/PDIF, AES, ADAT, USB, and Firewire can tolerate large amounts of jitter without any loss of data. These inter...
