Benchmarks Director of Engineering John Siau talks about intersample overshoots that can cause distortion in DA converters.

We have frequently used Steely Dan's Gaslighting Abbie from Two Against Nature in our listening tests. This is a spectacular CD recording with lots of dynamics and a low noise floor. Nevertheless, in a little over 5 minutes, this track has 1129 intersample overs. This means that there are about 3.7 intersample overs per second.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – FEBRUARY 2017: Dropping his tone as one might in conversation with a co-conspirator, TV composer Jonathan Thomas Miller seemed to almost confess: "The speed of my delivery is crazy. I'm writing, recording, and mixing three to four pieces a day. I gotta crank it out!" But don't get the wrong idea; he wasn't complaining. Miller loves the challenge and constraints of his business, which he's been building for nearly two decades.

Iisalmi, 31 January 2017 | We are deeply saddened to announce that Ilpo Martikainen, the founder of Genelec and a true pioneer in active audio monitoring  passed away on January 30th 2017, at the age of 69 after struggling with a long-term illness. During the recent years, Ilpo focused on involving the next generation. His children Juho Martikainen, Mikko Martikainen and Maria Martikainen have grown up as part of the Genelec family.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – SEPTEMBER 2016: With Ten Grammy wins, including Best Engineered Album for The Raconteurs Consolers of the Lonely and scores of platinum and gold albums, Joe Chiccarelli has made good on the famous opportunity Frank Zappa gave him during the recording of "Sheik Yerbouti" – among Zappa's best-selling albums ever. When the head engineer couldn't make the session, Zappa promoted then-assistant engineer Chiccarelli to take the lead.

All Metric Halo Hardware and Software is macOS 10.12 Sierra Compatible from Day 1

Although pro audio manufacturers like to throw around the word "future-proof," no one can compare with Metric Halo's proven track record. Indeed, users of its 2882 hardware interface, introduced in 2000, are still using their original boxes with modern Macs via a well-coordinated plan of free software upgrades that keep them current! That philosophy and dedication extends to Metric Halo's hardware drivers, MIO Console software, plug-in software, and SpectraFoo software, all of which are completely compatible with Mac's newest operating system, 10.12 Sierra. No need to worry about incompatibility issues with Metric Halo, everything will simply work after the OS upgrade just as it did before the OS upgrade. Easy peasy.
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In their listening room Benchmark recently demonstrated the importance of the first watt using two 100 watt stereo power amplifiers. One amplifier was a traditional class-AB amplifier, the other was Benchmark's AHB2 power amplifier with feed-forward error correction. Using a double-blind ABX test, they verified that there was a clearly audible difference when the amplifiers drove speakers at an output level of 0.01 watt.

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"If balanced line-level connections work well, balanced headphone outputs should also work well."

Senior designer John Siau of Benchmark Media disagrees!

Benchmark does not offer balanced headphone outputs on any of its products. The reason for this is that a voltage-balanced interface serves no useful purpose when driving headphones. The truth is that a conventional single-ended headphone drive is technically superior to a balanced drive. This paper explains why single-ended headphone amplifiers are inherently more transparent than balanced headphone amplifiers.

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