I think if you can try it out, that's the best way to go. I had the DAC1 in silver w/o usb connected to a music server with toslink and my denon 3910 with coax. I have Dali MS4 speakers which are ultr revealing, so the DAC 1 wasn't a good mix with them, since it's revealing to the point of being analytical. This was designed for mastering in studios so it's not going to romance the sound at all, which can be a good thing if your system has romance elsewhere. I sold mine and got the MHDT Havana DAC, which is a tube-based non-oversampling DAC, and I'm really happy with hit, but YMMV. No matter what, I would recommend getting a DAC that has USB, because I love my music server and it's nice having that flexibility; plus, as more people hop on the server wagon, it will help resale value to have that option. The Havana has DAC, there's also the Brick from wavelength, something new from Bryston, and of course the Benchmark. There are a number of others you can find as well. I'll be hearing the Bel Canto DAC3 this weekend, so I'll let you know how that sounds, but it's in a different price range.
To sum up, the benchmark is sonically neutral and very detailed, but with some systems this may be a bad thing. Listen for yourself and screw the reviews (even mine!)
To sum up, the benchmark is sonically neutral and very detailed, but with some systems this may be a bad thing. Listen for yourself and screw the reviews (even mine!)