OK, the DAC3 HGC that Benchmark was kind enough to send arrived today. So I put it on the bench and ran a few tests. I will be on the road tomorrow late morning so if you want to have anything else measured (hopefully not!), ask right away.
NOTE:
all measurements are using balanced output unless noted, with -10 dB jumper applied as the original review.
Let's start with our Dashboard view:
Right away we see a 2 dB or so improvement in SINAD/reduction of distortion compared to the loaner unit I had from
@dallasjustice.
Let's look at the contested Jitter measurements using Benchmark's own ASIO driver:
We see a substantial improvement in jitter sidebands. We went from -108 dB or so to -131 dB!
No, it had nothing to do with using ASIO4ALL:
As you see, it makes no difference which driver is used. Both generate the identical, much improved results.
For completeness, let's run through the rest of our tests:
We see a marked improvement in low frequency noise/distortion (in green/brown). Gone is also the varying channel response that I saw (in red) in the first unit I tested. This matches our dashboard view of better THD+N/SINAD.
Here is IMD vs level and comparison to some other devices I had tested later, specifically Oppo UDP-205:
The Benchmark DAC3 HGC (in red) has substantially lower noise than all the other DACs I have tested. It starts to saturate a bit at maximum level where it then runs into Oppo UDP-205. But otherwise beats it handily.
And here is the spectrum of 1 kHz distortion and noise (saved for future reference):
Distortion products are well under -120 dB, satisfying our even most conservative standard for audibility or better said, lack thereof.
Finally, linearity:
Using balanced output (which is used in all of the tests above), the DAC3 nails the performance here. There is something you don't see in these graphs which is how much my analyzer struggles to get stable set of measurements. With every DAC I have tested, it usually times out and picks the last value at lower amplitudes. Not so with Benchmark DAC3. The results instantly converge allowing the analyzer to run through all the values. There is exceptional engineering here to generate such stability and precision at such low amplitudes.
Alas, the small blemish on unbalanced output remains.
Summary
This second loaner unit of Benchmark DAC3 (HGC) finally
lives up to the standard and reputation of Benchmark as a company. Measurements are exceptional with no faults found anywhere. OK, there is a setback in linearity for unbalanced output but otherwise, this is as good it gets guys.
It is a puzzler as to why the previous loaner did not generate as exceptional of results as this unit. I hope Benchmark works with the owner of the other unit and investigates.
