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Benchmark will be closed 11/26 and 11/27 in celebration of Thanksgiving. We will reopen Monday 11/30/20.
Benchmark will be closed 11/26 and 11/27 in celebration of Thanksgiving. We will reopen Monday 11/30/20.
Since 1983, Benchmark products have been designed, assembled, and tested in the USA. Our products are now shipped to every continent, but we are firmly committed to keeping our manufacturing in the USA.
In celebration of our 33rd anniversary, we have released a series of four videos that show our USA manufacturing operations. These videos show many of the operations required to build top-quality professional audio products. You will see automated hi-tech manufacturing equipment, but you will also see plenty of good old-fashioned hand craftsmanship.
We hope you enjoy these videos. If you would like to ask questions or make comments, we encourage you to post them on the Benchmark Media Systems FaceBook Page.
At Benchmark, listening is the final exam that determines if a design passes from engineering to production. When all of the measurements show that a product is working flawlessly, we spend time listening for issues that may not have shown up on the test station. If we hear something, we go back and figure out how to measure what we heard. We then add this test to our arsenal of measurements.
Benchmark's listening room is equipped with a variety of signal sources, amplifiers and loudspeakers, including the selection of nearfield monitors shown in the photo. It is also equipped with ABX switch boxes that can be used to switch sources while the music is playing.
Benchmark's lab is equipped with Audio Precision test stations that include the top-of-the-line APx555 and the older AP2722 and AP2522. We don't just use these test stations for R&D - every product must pass a full set of tests on one of our Audio Precision test stations before it ships from our factory in Syracuse, NY.
Paul Seydor of The Absolute Sound interviews John Siau, VP and chief designer at Benchmark Media Systems. The interview accompanies Paul's review of the LA4 in the December, 2020 issue of TAS.
"At Benchmark, listening is the final exam that determines if a design passes from engineering to production. But since listening tests are never perfect, it’s essential we develop measurements for each artifact we identify in a listening test. An APx555 test set has far more resolution than human hearing, but it has no intelligence. We have to tell it exactly what to measure and how to measure it. When we hear something we cannot measure, we are not doing the right measurements. If we just listen, redesign, then repeat, we may arrive at a solution that just masks the artifact with another less-objectionable artifact. But if we focus on eliminating every artifact that we can measure, we can quickly converge on a solution that approaches sonic transparency. If we can measure an artifact, we don't try to determine if it’s low enough to be inaudible, we simply try to eliminate it."
- John Siau
