It stands to reason that if you're using high quality components in your playback chain; an outboard DAC such as the DAC1 could serve you nicely. Your system would be able to bring out the subtle details that a higher quality DAC can reveal.

The DAC1 is made as a stereo device. If your just connecting it to your transport (in this case your RP-91) via a digital connection, than all you need is one. Taking the analog output of the DAC1 and connecting it into the direct inputs of your 950 would be the proper connection method. The DAC1 can also function as a pre-amp if you want to hook it up directly to amps.

Note: Benchmark recently raised the price of the DAC1. It's still a good deal at the new price but it is a little more expensive.

Jason, thank you for your response. The DAC1 promotes special features in it's design that seem to set it apart from other quality DAC's found in receivers, pre-pros, and players.

From the Benchmark brochure... "Many DACs derive their system clock directly from the AES receiver making them very susceptible to jitter. These DACs can rarely achieve their rated performance in real world applications. By contrast, the DAC1 takes full advantage of our jitter free UltraLock™ technology... The DAC1 provides some of the finest analog conversion through 192-kHz and all sample rates playback with a 52-kHz analog bandwidth. The performance of the DAC1 is unrivaled. THD+N is an astonishing low -106 dB (0.0005%) measured at 0 dBFS, at any playback frequency, at any sample rate, with any degree of input jitter..."

Considering this and your experience with other equipment, do you believe that the DAC1 represents a significant improvement over the many products (receivers, pre-pros, and players) that include high quality DAC's as part of their design? And, is the 52-kHz analog bandwidth in playback uncommon for DAC's?

thank you again...
Allan

You want to improve Stereo sound.

You have nice speakers.

Everyone loves to say "buy new speakers!" but in all honesty the sound can be improved to get the most out of your speakers rather easily.

First I'd look at the source. You never mentioned what you source is. You likely could buy a really nice CD player and improve your sound.

You could buy some Audio-Tech Feet of Silence and improve your sound (seriously, of all the changes I've made in the last 5 year, Audio-Techs' Rack Of Silence, Discs of Silence, and Feet of Silence made the LARGEST difference and most notable).

You could jump right to speakers but I think you have nice speakers to begin with. Find out where in the chain is the weakest link and look to improve it.

CD player/DVD player, Pre-Amp, Receiver, AMP, Speaker Cable, Interconnects, the Audio-Tech stuff, any of those could audibly increase the performance of your system.