Cerrot - Yes, it is revealing and very natural sounding (that is also unforgiving on some recordings). Benchmark's technical director John Siau did not want Benchmark to sound warm since it screws up more complex harmonic structures like piano's.
Benchmark, at the very beginning had opinion of thin sounding because it had different op-amps. Not really different but made by Phillips vs. newer ones made by Texas Instr. Phillips/Signetics factory burned down around 2001 and they sold NE5532 license to Texas Instruments. TI redesigned die making it larger and fuller sounding. You can recognize TI amps by logo that is outline of Texas map. Another problem of early DAC1s was very high output impedance on unbalanced outputs.
New Benchmarks USB and Pre use LM4562 in output stages making balanced output impedance lower, especially at -10dB where it was on the high side (audible).
Benchmark, at the very beginning had opinion of thin sounding because it had different op-amps. Not really different but made by Phillips vs. newer ones made by Texas Instr. Phillips/Signetics factory burned down around 2001 and they sold NE5532 license to Texas Instruments. TI redesigned die making it larger and fuller sounding. You can recognize TI amps by logo that is outline of Texas map. Another problem of early DAC1s was very high output impedance on unbalanced outputs.
New Benchmarks USB and Pre use LM4562 in output stages making balanced output impedance lower, especially at -10dB where it was on the high side (audible).