AHB2 Review - Greg Weaver, Enjoy the Music.com
AHB2 - "The Sonic Results are Nothing Short of Extraordinary!"
"The sonic results of all the time and effort spent refining this circuit and developing this design are nothing short of extraordinary! Bass is rendered with exceptional detail and speed, and brother can it go deep! In fact, I can't think of another amplifier (or pair of monos) I've experienced for under about $6000 that can do what the AHB2 can do with the bandwidth below 100 Hz. It has jaw dropping, chest-thumping impact while still being able to render remarkably accurate and refined pitch definition. In many ways, its bass performance reminded me of my time with the $65,000 WAVAC MD-805 Mk II monos, which rendered some of the most engaging bass I've yet heard."
"Midrange is simply captivating, rich in both musical resolve and harmonic texture. It affords an exceptionally well-balanced mixture of both tonal truth and emotional expression. Instrumental voices are provided the body and bloom needed to complete the "live" illusion, recording permitting, and are related with the proper texture and tonal color, if ever so slightly to the dryer side of natural."
"Treble is extended, airy, and resolute. Once again, I'm hard pressed to think of an amplifier for less than twice as much as the AHB2 that can even begin to compare, let alone match, this amps performance with the spectrum above 2.5 kHz. This extended and replete high frequency performance bestows a sense of ease and relaxed enchantment to well-recorded materials previously unheard of in this price point."
"One of the areas where the AHB2 really shines is in its ability to render the space between and the sense of both the space occupied by, and the interrelationships of instrumental positions and locations. Instruments and vocalists occupy an uncannily realistic sense of size and locale. I was left speechless more often than I cared to count by this engaging and enchanting ability."
"Benchmark's AHB2 amplifier is a truly breakthrough, innovative design."
- Greg Weaver, Enjoy the Music.com
Also in Reviews
AHB2 Review - Constantine Soo, Dagogo
"The AHB2 bridgeable stereo amplifier ... was the topic of a recent discussion between American electrostatic panel speaker manufacturer Sound Lab’s president, Dr. Roger West, and me."
"In our discussion, he related his highly positive experience in driving even his largest, $55k Majestic 945 panels with the $7,000 pair of Benchmark Media AHB2 monoblocks, along with the $3,050 LA4 Preamplifier and factory XLR cables."
"Dr. West described the AHB2 as a class AB design using “feed-forward distortion reduction [thus removing] any possibility of pushing the margin of safety of a standard feedback loop, used in most amplifiers, into an unstable oscillatory mode.”"
"He further shared with me that “this is of most concern on powerful musical transients. The distortion of the amplifier in the balanced mode is astonishingly low even at just below the clipping level of 380 watts.”"
"The prospect of the AHB2’s specified distortion level of 0.00015% or lower when at full volume is comical at first glance, but upon actual audition the impact of the achievement is very audible from medium-high listening levels and upward."
"It was unlike any other sub-$20,000 amplifier I have auditioned."
"My audition of the Benchmark Media AHB2 amplifiers underscores the reason Dr. West is so taken by it, and confirms the design is best described as a watershed moment in the high-end audio industry."
- Constantine Soo, Dagogo
DAC3 Review - Jerry Del Colliano
"Benchmark is a stalwart brand in pro audio, but has carved out a very respectable niche in the audiophile world with their diminutive but powerful components."
"The audiophile world sometimes looks to the professional audio world for enlightenment, especially on the digital side of things, and Benchmark Media is one of the companies that we put high on a pedestal."
"They are hardcore digital engineers freezing their asses off in upstate New York as they come up with some pretty innovative ways to get your varied digital sources sounding as much like the master tape as possible. Thank you for your service, gentlemen."
"If you really want to hear what your music sounds like in today’s streaming-driven world, this might just be the DAC that you need to test out."
- Jerry Del Colliano, Future Audiophile
DAC3 & AHB2 - System Review, Trevor Butler, The-Ear.net
"I began with the DAC3 HGC and AHB2 powering the glorious Morel Avyra 633 three-way floorstanders."
"This pairing created a full-bodied sound which brought the recording to life."
"Notable from the off was the bass from the DAC3 HGC and AHB2."
"Wow! It was deep, tight and conveyed a real feeling that the electronics were in charge of the transducers."
"Involuntary foot-tapping confirmed the timing ability and the overall presentation was spot-on, the Benchmark electronics created a fluent sound across a vivid soundstage; performers evident both tonally and spatially in an easy-to-believe presentation that brought the performance close."
"The Benchmark’s ability to retrieve deep-down detail and display it so well across the soundstage, with accurate positioning and convincing layering, made for a glorious re-creation of the recordings."
"To my mind the AHB2 is an amplifier with no obvious characteristics of its own: the level of transparency is sublime."
"Above all, the improved transient response performance stood out in a presentation that was not only lively but incredibly fast and revealing. The attack and decay displayed was awesome and not something I expect at this price point."
"The Benchmark DAC3 HGC and AHB2 are cracking products, sonically superior to a lot that’s available and well priced."
"They are superbly designed and built to an extremely high standard."
- Trevor Butler, the-ear.net