AHB2 Review - Paul Seydor, The Absolute Sound
AHB2 - "Essentially Perfect"
"Benchmark products ... are made for the professional market (where they are ubiquitous) and designed to the most exacting standards of performance and reliability."
"Within a remarkably short period of time ... my mental processes shifted from comparison mode to enjoying music, all the attention drawn to the source material and the rare sensation of feeling as if I were listening back to the source."
Resolution
"The Benchmark resolves and thus reproduces all the detail there is on every recording I played that I know well."
"Let me cite the toughest resolution test I know: for the a capella introduction of “Moon River” on her Johnny Mercer album, the soprano Jacintha was placed in an isolation booth while occasional chords from a piano were played through her headphones so that she could stay in tune. Despite heroic measures to ensure isolation, the chords nevertheless bled through her headphones and can be heard during the silences. Now these are extremely far down in level; in a couple of instances they are all but inaudible. If a component can reproduce them, that’s about as much resolution as you are ever likely to need. Suffice it to say the Benchmark did."
Neutral Sound
"The Benchmark will reproduce a bright, forward sound if it’s in the source, as it is with a vengeance in Bernstein’s New York recording of Copland’s Appalachian Spring, and it will produce a warm and intimate sound if that is in the source, as in Ofra Harnoy’s Arpeggione sonata by Schubert."
"The Big Stuff"
What about the big stuff? Well, I don’t know much bigger stuff than the lowest organ notes on Kei Kioto’s Bach recital, and they’re not transients, either but deep, long sustained notes. No problem on the Quads or the Super HL5plus."
"Benjamin Zander’s recording of the Mahler Sixth with its hammerblows was awesome enough in slam and weight to satisfy. If you need more power, you can always add a second AHB2 and bridge both for mono operation."
"As part of the evaluation, I auditioned a single AHB2 driving the Harbeths in a room considerably larger than my own: 18 feet wide by 32 feet long with a pitched ceiling that rises to 13 feet at its apex. This combination filled the room as loud as I and the owner could stand and at no point did the clipping indicators illuminate, even during loud organ music with sustained very low notes."
Accuracy and Reliability
"Because accuracy allied to absolutely reliable performance is the goal of all the Benchmarks."
"... a precision instrument designed to perform the precisely defined task of reproducing music and sound accurately, which it does essentially to perfection."
"Professionals buy Benchmark because they know the products work and are reliable and accurate—indeed, reference caliber. Music lovers buy them because they are neutral and accurate and thus reproduce the tonal character of voices and instruments correctly."
"... they are not products that tend to attract cults or other sorts of starry-eyed enthusiasts, wholly lacking any of the quirks, foibles, idiosyncrasies, sonic flavorings, euphonic distortions, and so on that characterize the objects of most audio cults. But to anyone else ..."
"... the AHB2 gets as high, enthusiastic, and confident a thumbs up as my arm is capable of reaching."
- Paul Seydor, The Absolute Sound, April 2016
Also in Reviews
AHB2 Review - Mike Prager, Future Audiophile
"For years, the audio world acknowledged one main contender (at least at sub-five-figure pricing) for the quietest, cleanest, most neutral power amplifier around. That was the Benchmark AHB2, whose specifications are still, for all practical purposes, unsurpassed, even by today’s excellent Class-D amps."
"10 years after its release, the Benchmark Media Systems AHB2 stereo power amp is still a standard-bearer in clean, neutral sound in the audiophile world."
"I greatly enjoyed having a pair of AHB2s in my system – their purity, neutrality, and seemingly unlimited power provided a clear window on the music and a lot of joy."
"I especially appreciated the AHB2’s smooth, well-integrated treble, free of splashiness or grain, and its natural reproduction of the human voice."
- Mike Prager, Future Audiophile
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