BENCHMARK MEDIA HPA4 PREAMPLIFIER-AHB2 POWER AMPLIFIER-DAC3 B DAC REVIEW
March 3, 2021 § Leave a comment
This is a time-domain plot of a -90 dBFS signal applied to the Oppo BDP-105D on the left channel. It is included here as a reference. The self-noise of the QA401 spectrum analyzer in time-domain mode is shown on the right channel which is grounded. The QA401 can be seen to have a suitably low noise level for something that isn’t an Audio Precision analyzer. Again the trick is here is in the range extension the Benchmark is providing me. The QA401 has a signal limit of 2VRMS but the Benchmark DAC3B is at 12.3VRMS. All the signals that will be presented in the following figures are far smaller than 2VRMS so the QA401 is safe with the Benchmark but the fact the output level is so much higher than 2VRMS range extends the QA401 by 15.8dB. With this trick the QA401 has the SNR of an AP but only because the Benchmark has such a high, ultra-low noise, output.
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