Digital Processor Reviews

Next came a big surprise. You all know how much I like music in my home to be vivid and spacious. So once again I'm playing Buddy Holly's "Apartment Tapes," from Down the Line: Rarities (2 mono CDs, Decca B0011675-02), and it's sounding very see-into-the-Hollys'-living-room revealing. The speaking voice of Holly's wife, Maria Elena, is more delicate and intelligible than it was an hour ago through the Mytek HiFi Brooklyn DAC. The BP DAC made her words easier to decipher, but seemed to do so by reducing the room tone. My curiosity aroused, I stopped the CD and played the same album at the same resolution via Tidal HiFi.

The acoustic of the Hollys' apartment reappeared. In "Crying, Waiting, Hoping (Undubbed Version)," Buddy's acoustic guitar sounded more woody and solid. His voice was more there, and the bass range was fuller. But why? All I'd done was switch from a CD feed sent through the BP's S/PDIF input to a "CD quality" Tidal HiFi stream sent through the BP's USB port. The differences were not subtle. Was it the BorderPatrol's receiver chips? Was it my Integra CD transport? Was I not holding my mouth right? I asked Gary Dews.

"It has nothing to do with the respective qualities of the USB and S/PDIF chips," Dews wrote back via e-mail. "In the USB+S/PDIF version of the DAC, which you have, the USB input chip converts the signal to S/PDIF and then runs it through the S/PDIF chip; so regardless of whether you are using the USB input or the S/PDIF input, the signal runs through the Texas Instruments DIR9001 S/PDIF chip. I have four CD transports here, and the Mac mini USB setup is better than all of them."

Interesting, no?

I hadn't noticed, but friends remarked that, compared to the HoloAudio Spring "Kitsuné Tuned Edition" Level 3 and Mytek HiFi Brooklyn Plus DACs, the BorderPatrol seemed "rolled off at the top" and "a little soft in the bass." Remembering that the DAC SE has no output buffers, I asked Dews what its output impedance was and if it would be okay into the 50k ohms input impedance of my Pass Labs HPA-1 preamp.

"The DAC's measured output impedance is 1.85k ohms at 1kHz, which is similar to or lower than most tube-based DACs," he replied. "The DAC was flat to 17.5kHz into a 20k ohm Alps Black pot. –3dB was 19kHz, so only bats would complain about that. Unless you are using particularly capacitive interconnects, there should be no lack of high frequencies. Preamplifier input impedance is more of an issue at low frequencies. That's why I recommend a minimum impedance of 20k ohms."

If either of these DACs is right...the other must be wrong.
Unlike the $1850 DAC SE—with its copper chassis, twin parallel power transformers, solid-state-and-tube rectification, choke-input filter, and discontinued converter chip—the $2195 Benchmark DAC3 HGC forgoes all such unsensible accoutrements that do not contribute to its measured performance and science-lab look. Smirking confidently, both DACs play into the belief systems of their disparate subjectivist-objectivist audiophile audiences.

I warmed the Benchmark on my workbench for 48 hours, then connected it to my Integra disc transport and played Lucinda Williams's Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone (2 CDs, Highway 20 H2-001). I'd just finished playing it through the Schiit Yggdrasil Analog 2, which made Williams sound fleshy and bloody, intimately near. The BorderPatrol DAC SE reproduced her voice in "West Memphis" with a more natural tone than any DAC I've used. Nevertheless, my first thought on hearing the Benchmark DAC3 HGC was, Wow, this DAC sounds really good...lots of fresh new detail and hard-pounding bass. I liked the Benchmark right away.

Strangely, by the end of the last song on disc 1, "It's Gonna Rain," I had an uneasy feeling that something important was missing, I couldn't say what. I'd listened to only one CD, but it felt as if the directness and intimacy that I knew Williams had laid down in those nine tracks had somehow been converted into sounds that emerged with detached, benign indifference. Were my perceptions colored by some preexisting bias against sigma-delta processing? Maybe. But I'd never experienced this detachment with my beloved Mytek HiFi Brooklyn or Manhattan II DACs, both of which are sigma-deltas.

When I played Birgit Nilsson Sings German Opera with the Benchmark, I got really worried. Kenneth Wilkinson's brilliant engineering had gone missing. Clearly, something was wrong.

I read about the Benchmark's Hybrid Gain Control in its manual and decided to try the DAC3 HGC connected directly to my power amplifier. Now I could smile again: Nilsson and Williams were back again, alive and on the job, sounding more clear and dynamic than ever. The sound went from dull to vivid and punchy. An hour later, I discovered the DAC3's HT Mode, in which analog gain and digital attenuation are both set to 0dB (maximum output). This somehow allowed the DAC3 to feed the Pass Labs HPA-1 preamp with no audible penalty.

The next day, while playing my latest obsession, Alexandre Desplat's score for Wes Anderson's film Isle of Dogs (16/44.1, ABKCO/Tidal), I couldn't help noticing that the Benchmark DAC delivered fierce, powerful, body-builder bass that kicked sand in the face of the BorderPatrol's weaker, softer bass. The Benchmark's vigor and precision in music's lower octaves made the timpani in "Taiko Drumming" and "The Municipal Dome" sound muscular and present in a way I found very satisfying.

As I sat there listening to Desplat's "Nutmeg," I also noticed the DAC3's unabashed and engaging descriptiveness—an important quality that I suspect is the "astonishing fidelity" that Jim Austin mentioned in his review. Was the Benchmark's descriptiveness more real or accurate than the BorderPatrol's slightly softer, more delicate renditions? Perhaps. But I see this descriptiveness issue as being less about accuracy (to what?) and more about which sonic traits best allow a listener to stay focused on the music's unfolding. Explicit detail and punchy clarity don't necessarily equal higher resolution or greater intimacy with the performance. Therefore, I still don't trust, or enjoy, the sort of OCD-clean sound I heard from the Benchmark DAC3 HGC.

Nevertheless, with Isle of Dogs I greatly preferred the Benchmark DAC's clarity and powerful movie-theater authority. One album that favored the Benchmark and BorderPatrol DACs was the Budos Band's Burnt Offering (16/44.1, Daptone/Tidal). Recorded live in the studio, it feels as if everyone in the group was surfing the same musical wave. They used real drums and a real drummer, an Afro-Memphis horn section, a Farfisa organ, and lots of Big Muff Pi fuzz-tone guitar. The Benchmark did really well with the drums and the funky Afro–Middle Eastern bass lines, but failed to find the chi and luster of the horns. Through the BorderPatrol DAC SE the horns emitted burnished corporeal tones saturated in color and vivacious in temperament. The Benchmark's horns were more gray and generic.

I heard the biggest difference between the BorderPatrol and Benchmark DACs in their reproductions of electric guitars. The glorious guitar instrumental "Rebel Rouser," from Duane Eddy's Hits & Rarities: The Best of the RCA Years (16/44.1, RCA/Tidal), made it easy to hear that the DAC3 got the pounding of the drums and the energy of the twang from Eddy's Gretsch gee-tar—but it truncated the reverb-drenched space of the recording, robbing me of a secret aural glimpse inside the rusty steel 2000-gallon water tank used as the echo chamber for this million-selling single.

Overall, the Benchmark generalized texture and atmosphere while excelling at rhythm, force, and separation of instruments. With rock, it always boogied. But it never inspired intimacy. The BorderPatrol specialized in refinement of tone and ampleness of atmosphere, with detail more delicate and lace-like than the somewhat brutish Benchmark's.

I love the headspace of modernist atonal composers—it matches the attitude I try to bring to my own art. Veslemoy Synsk, a song cycle by Norwegian composer Olav Anton Thommessen, with mezzo-soprano Marianne Beate Kielland accompanied by pianist Anders Mortensen, is perfectly aligned with my art-aesthetic viewpoint (16/44.1, 2L/Tidal)—it's a work of fine musical art in a superb recording. I use it to evaluate DACs and digital links because it's perfectly true of timbre and showcases a Herb-friendly, old-school modernist humanism. The BorderPatrol DAC SE, the Pass Labs electronics, and the Harbeth M30.2 speakers let Kielland's voice and Mortensen's piano sound realistically corporeal, completely un-digital, and entirely satisfying. Every note, sung or played, drew my attention to the poetry of these songs—not to the DAC.

The trouble with the romantic...
I could live happily ever after with the BorderPatrol Audio Electronics DAC SE, but I'm of several minds about it.

My right brain says, "Yes! I get it. This is what digital recordings are supposed to sound like." My left brain says, "No! Digital recordings actually do sound like the Benchmark DAC3 HGC portrays them. So get used to it."

Then my rational reviewer's mind kicks in: "Both DACs are wrong! The similarly priced HoloAudio Spring and Schiit Yggdrasil Analog 2 DACs represent a more neutral (what's that?), accurate (I hate that word), less sonically extreme middle ground."

Finally, my beating heart declares, "Herb, you must love this new outlier DAC that turns its back on heavy-handed, digital-sounding digital and, instead, delivers refined, human-sounding musical pleasures—at a very reasonable price."

If your right brain dominates and your romantic heart throbs, I highly recommend the DAC SE.