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
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LA4 Review - Mike Prager, FutureAudiophile.com
"Benchmark Media Systems made its reputation in both pro audio and audiophile circles by designing gear with extraordinarily low noise and distortion, and selling it at reasonable prices."
"What Makes the Benchmark LA4 Preamp So Special?"
"A high-quality volume control is much of what makes a superior preamp shine, and the Benchmark’s volume control is outstanding. The Benchmark LA4 uses a bank of precision resistors switched by gold-contact relays to set volume in 256 steps of 0.5 decibels each."
"If accurate reproduction is your wish, you won’t find a preamp with meaningfully better objective performance than the Benchmark LA4, especially one made in the United States at anything near the LA4’s price."
"Very few preamps at any price reach the LA4’s level of objective performance."
"On the subjective end of things, the Benchmark LA4 preamp puts the lie to the old audiophile myth that neutrality means clinical, cold, or sterile sound. Instead, here neutrality means musical, involving sound, with precise, stable imaging, a sense of space (if one is on the recording), and exceptionally truthful timbres."
- Mike Prager, FutureAudiophile.com
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