if you don't mind i'll quote another opinion from Stereophile, where a top Bel Canto Dac 3.5VB is reviewed and compared to Benchmark Dac1 HDR.
" The Sound of Silence
The e.One DAC3.5VB didn't sound like anything. Tonally, it had no sonic character of its own. Bass was very extended and full, yet had nice slam. The bass-drum machines in Kraftwerk's nicely remastered Trans Europe Express (CD, Kling Klang 5099930830325) were delivered with both speed and weight. (It frightens me that this album was made when I was still in diapers.) The DAC3.5VB's midrange was fleshy, even, and full of texture. Gidon Kremer's violin in Vladimir Martynov's exquisite Come In! (CD, Nonesuch 79582-2) offered the right balance of the instrument's wooden body, steel strings, and rosined bow.
The DAC3.5VB's treble was among the cleanest, clearest, and most extended I've heard, and imposed no emphasis or grain on any recording I played. For me, the differences between the good and the best digital sound can be most easily heard in the top octaves. Good digital gear gets the tonal balance in the top octaves right, but smears and smooshes treble sounds into slightly homogenized information. The best digital gear delineates each treble sound in space and with a distinct timbre—sibilants sound like sibilants, shakers like shakers, cymbals like cymbals—each surrounded by the proper halo of acoustic. In this regard, the DAC3.5VB produced among the best digital sound I've heard."
/............./
"It's now 2011, and I thought I'd set up a shoot-out between each company's latest models, the e.One DAC3.5VB and the DAC1 HDR ($1895). I matched the volume levels between the DACs with a RadioShack SPL meter and the test tones on Editor's Choice (CD, Stereophile STPH015-2), then played some tunes, beginning with a track from that same disc: pianist Robert Silverman's reading of Liszt's Liebestraum.
There was very little tonal difference between the DACs. Each presented a very neutral and revealing picture of this piano playing in this hall, the Bel Canto letting me more easily "see" the piano's outline in relief against its acoustic surroundings.
It was when I turned to music with more complicated mixes and more information at the frequency extremes that the Bel Canto outshone the Benchmark. The DAC3.5VB had deeper bass, a sweeter, more extended, more grain-free treble, a more liquid midrange, and a bigger, more layered soundstage. Don't get me wrong, the Benchmark DAC1 HDR is a fantastic product, but I feel that the DAC3.5VB's clearly superior performance entirely justifies its significantly higher price. In fact, I think the Bel Canto e.One DAC3.5VB is in a league altogether different from the still-impressive Benchmark DAC1 HDR."
So if the Benchmark has already reached perfection 10 years ago, why there is still room for improvement?
this race will never end..