Apogee/Benchmark/Lavry Review
Posted by: DeltaSigma on 26 February 2009
For those who may be interested, there's an interesting review of the Lavry DA10, Apogee Mini-DAC and Benchmark DAC1 in Sound on Sound magazine (January 2009). It may be downloaded for US$1.50 and contains some interesting information (for me at least) on the technical differences between the three products.
Posted on: 26 February 2009 by DeltaSigma
Lavry DA10 on Crystal mode was felt to be the best where sound quality was concerned. But to be fair the reviewer mentioned a few drawbacks in terms of ease of use and features compared to the others.
In general, I found the technical info on it and the other DACs quite interesting and educational - they are all good products in their way.
Posted on: 26 February 2009 by 'haroldbudd'
also there is a neat article in the Sound on Sound archives on NAIM, the label and what they used at the time to record/mix.
great mag if you are into the recording/mixing side of things. The Lavry and Bechmark ( and the upcoming Naim Dac) can't be used for the recording side but for the mixing and even mastering, yes. I hope SOS reviews the NAIM dac when it comes out. Should be interesting what the Studio people think of it.
Posted on: 26 February 2009 by DeltaSigma
To expand a little on my previous post, the drawbacks of the DA10 compared to the others were felt to be the lack of a main output mute switch when using headphones (now corrected, I believe, with the DA11), the lack of conversion in the Narrow/Crystal modes at sample rates over 96kHz, the lack of a rotary volume control and the availability of only a single analog output.
However, the sound quality in Crystal mode was apparently very impressive to the reviewer- so much so that he has apparently bought a DA10 for his own use.
The article has a detailed description of what the DA10 does in Crystal mode. Apparently, the sophisticated reclocking performed in this mode results in extremely effective jitter reduction and this helps to produce the excellent audio quality when used in this way. I have always preferred this mode myself and it was interesting to find my personal impression confirmed by the review.
