Caiman+Gator v Benchmark DAC1 - initial impressions

[Tim]

Well I spoke to Stan as mentioned on Tuesday afternoon and later the same day ordered a Gatorised Caiman. It arrived as promised at 9.30 this morning, nicely packaged and felt a little heavier than I was expecting.

I planned to plug it in and leave it sit warming for a few hours before doing anything, but temptation got the better of me, so I hooked it up to my PC (using only a bog-standard USB cable) and plugged in my HD650's.

Now I have nothing to compare this to, in relation to other Beresford DAC's, so cannot judge what has improved with the Gator upgrade - but straight out of the box, not even warm and I am mightily impressed. Very good build quality, which exceeded my expectations. I have only listened to Allison Moorer's 'Duel' and her acoustic version of 'Crows', now I have Eric Bibb spinning, playing 'Diamond Days' and all I can say is it's jaw droppingly good. Plenty of punch, but the detail and resolution is particularly good . . . in fact I am hearing something I have not noticed before, I can hear what sounds like Eric tapping his foot in time with the beat. It's also a much warmer sound than I was expecting, in fact at the moment I'm grinning I can't wait to burn it in and hook it up to my main system. I know I'm probably still on a bit of a high after seeing Tina Dico last night, but it's times like this, that I realise why I love music so much.

Many thanks Stan, without doubt a 5 star product and excellent service (I may have to buy another one of these for the bedroom!).

Tim

(Win7 Music Server playing 44100Hz/16 bit .flac files using foobar2000 - headphone dial at 1 o'clock)
I kept going and my first plays were extended somewhat!

Allison Moorer - Duel, acoustic Crows
Eric Bibb - Diamond Days
Dixie Chicks - Wide Open Spaces
Blackfield - Blackfield
The Decemberists - The King is Dead
Mahler 5's adagio - Rattle BPO
Otis Taylor - Clovis People Vol. 3 (Ain't no Cowgirl is particularly good)
Joe Bonamassa - Sloe Gin
Jolie Holland - Catalpa
a selection of SIA
Diana Krall - A Night in Paris
and finally Ray LaMontagne - Trouble
. . . everyone a winner