Yet I use them with my Paul Klipsch La Scala horns (that no one here likes
). Ask me if I'm happy?
I bet you are. I listened to the La Scala's at my friend's place who is driving them with a Bryston 4B3 and it sounds terrific: all that density and dynamic feel and very clean, no tube hiss.
One thing I can tell you, information about 'harshness and detail' is not what you will find on ASR. ASR is a great place (probably the best place) to figure out who is doing audio engineering correctly. But in your living room? Figuring it out subjectively? Emotionally?
I find the same, generally speaking. For me this is a great web site for some education and especially a far lower b.s. threshold about audio.
Hugely refreshing.
At the same time, I find the general direction of commentary often thin on some things I really care about in audio.
(E.g. the subjective impression aspect: the general disparagement...often justified...of subjective reviews also means that many ASRs seem allergic to describing sound in much depth, lest they risk sounding like they are going down the path to spouting "B.S. Poetry Instead Of Facts" that is often attacked here).
The only thing I can honestly suggest is that you get something based upon what YOU think is important. What fits in with your budget and what you will enjoy.
I agree, but would like to add an important caveat.
There is a sense of course in which our choices are always going to be based on our own experience and taste and goals, which is legitimate.
There is another version of this that is part of the pure subjectivist b.s., the version that goes
"ONLY your experience matters with any audio product! If you haven't had direct personal experience with a product, then you don't have a leg to stand in giving your opinion."
This is obvious religious-level thinking. Of course someone can have an opinion on a piece of gear he hasn't used, and can have a more justified opinion than the person with "personal experience." For instance, take Person A who thinks he is hearing better sound or seeing better picture on his TV between an expensive HDMI cable and a cheaper one, when both are functioning and properly spec'd cables.
Person B has a fundemantal understanding of how HDMI cables work, and can know (for all intents and purposes) that Person A is imagining these differences. That's just not how HDMI cables work. Person B doesn't need Person A's experience with that particular expensive HDMI cable to have the more valid opinion.
That said, tubes (or expensive blue meters) are great at night, when the lights are dim. Makes listening all the more enjoyable. In the daytime however, when the sun is out, you want someone like John Siau to tell you the truth. It's as simple as that.
But what if You Can't Handle The Truth! ;-)
You wrote earlier:
Subjectively I think the Benchmark is completely transparent to the point of ridiculousness--with its companion DAC3 HGC preamp.
Yes, on that subject, and anecdotally speaking: I have the Benchmark DAC1 and Benchmark DAC 2L. At times I've run the DAC directly in to power amps, bypassing my tube preamp, and again just recently I switched out my CJ tube preamp to use the DAC 2L as my preamp.
The DAC 2L isn't as a preamp isn't quite as heroically engineered as the Benchmark preamp you use, but Benchmark as a matter of course does damned accurate/transparent gear.
And it sure sounds transparent has heck!
With apologies, I'd like to riff a bit on this subject from my perspective.
The term "transparent" is often seen as a dirty word around here, meaningless to some. So to give it some context, I think it's easy to understand "Transparent" as a technical term, insofar as it signifies "accurate" in the sense of "imposing no deviations/distortions of it's own on the signal." (Which in the case of digital can be a technically perfect copy, or in analog equipment, distortion kept to an inaudible level).
Subjectively I accept the terms as many audiophiles tend to accept it. Essentially it's like experiencing "technical transparency" in subjective terms: an obvious example would be an average or low quality vinyl version of a track vs the full res digital version, where you can hear the the noise floor, and the scrim of vinyl distortion on the music, drop away when moving from vinyl to digital. The digital not only IS transparent in a technical sense, it "sounds" more transparent in the subjective sense of sounding like you are hearing a cleaner, more pure version of the sonic signal. Where a scrim of noise has been removed, details about the track become less obscured.
That's GENERALLY what audiophiles usually mean with the word "Transparent."
Audiophiles, especially in the purely subjective camp, may use the term when describing purely imaginary impressions - e.g. how their uber expensive AC cable made for more "transparent" sound. But the fact the term can be misused by those experiencing bias effects doesn't mean it is therefore a term of pure fantasy and can't be fruitfully applied to describing certain sonic effects, IMO. Someone may
imagine their standard AC cable makes their system sound "brighter" than their new AC cable, but that doesn't mean "brighter" isn't also a useful short hand description for real sonic characteristics in a system.
(BTW, there's also a lot of disparagement about the audiophile term Black Background, as if it's meaningless. It isn't meaningless per se, even though it can be misapplied. An example like the vinyl vs digital signal above could also describe what a "blacker background" sounds like.
On the vinyl if there is a level of surface noise, the musical details "sit" above that surface noise, and subtle details like subtle reverb trails disappear in to that surface noise. Subjectively it can sound like musical details, sax, voice, trumpet, are hovering in a very slight sonic lightened mist. Take away that surface noise, go to the digital version, and that slight surface noise "mist" disappears and the subjective effect is a "blacker background" behind the instruments from which they appear, and the tiniest details may seem to "trail a bit further" in to that black background. The thing is, this effect is not apprehendable just in a vinyl vs digital comparison, it can be apprehended between amps - if say a tube amp is producing enough distortion - and between different speakers/sound systems in different rooms (e.g. the sonic characteristics of a speaker interacting in a certain room may result in that slight sense of "hash" to the sound where another smoother sounding system will sound more "transparent" and with a "blacker background." I can easily render just these changes through pure acoustics in my own room - the more lively close room reflections I allow, the more apparent "fuzz/hash" to the sound, though brighter and livelier, the more I cut down on close reflections, the smoother and "darker" the background in which the instruments sit seems to become subjectively)
Anyway...back to Benchmark.
Every time I bypass my tube pre-amp and run the DAC in to an amplifier, or replaced my preamp with the Benchmark pre-amp, I immediately get that impression of "greater transparency" in the subjective sense described above. It is really cool. And I love it for a while.
But after a while I get a little frustrated because I perceive greater "transparency" in another sense: that the instruments and voices, though now cleaner and clearer, seem more "transparent" in the sense of being "see-through." It's like I can see right through them as objects as it were, they become more hologram like than solid and dense. When I put the tube preamp back in I take a slight step back in terms of purity/transparency, but the sonic images seem more "there," dense, textured, solid, more believably real. So I always go back to using the tube preamp...as I just did last night. In fact, I was a bit shocked at the level of difference - the way Joni Mitchell sounded like a super clean, clear recording via the Benchmark preamp, but moving to the tube preamp just sounded more "there in the room, popping out of the recording, like a real voice occupying dense space in the room between the speakers.
The thing is I can easily imagine someone else preferring the "more technically transparent sound" of the Benchmark gear even in my system.
But these tiny things really matter to me, they are what I personally listen for, and so what may seem a minor thing to someone else is subjectively a big deal to me.