Hi Chippy,

I have both the Caiman and the Benchmark DAC1 HDR and very good though the Caiman is, the Benchmark is clearly superior. Which you would really hope it would be, considering the huge price difference!
I'm afraid that these days with hi-fi equipment one cannot reliably presume that because something is much more expensive it is therefore better.

Like Stan said before, quite correctly, there are:

Too many middlemen and get rich quick merchants.
...and this often accounts for differences in price between equipment, rather than the use of superior quality components in a more expensive item. In effect, one isn't always paying for out-and-out sound quality differences when buying more expensive equipment, but rather the funding of the above 'slurpers'.

My system contains items which outperform equipment at many times its price, so don't make the mistake of believing that something that's more expensive is bound to be better - it often isn't the case!

If the Caiman were made by a 'high-end', well-known, commercial manufacturer (pick any you like), how much do you think it would retail for?

A heck of a lot more than Stan sells it for, I can assure you!

Marco.

P.S The other thing I would add is have you heard the Caiman with its upgraded PSU? I suspect that would more than give the Benchmark a run for its money, and still at lower cost