SMS1 Review - Paul Rigby, The Audiophile Man
SMS1 - "Airy Mids, Spacious Soundstage"
"I was impressed by the broad nature of the SMS1 soundstage. Clarinets and strings had a beautifully resonant aspect, letting the ear know that all of these instruments had a specific character. Another feature of the soundstage was the piano’s ability to make itself heard. Normally, this element of the song has the piano running along the base of the soundstage, largely unheard except for a few scattered notes. The Benchmarks were able to separate the piano from its surrounding orchestral instruments which provided a delightful keyboard rendition while delicate percussion effects via treble-infused cymbals, again normally masked in the mix, were also able to be picked out."
"Guitars were suitably aggressive while the bass never bled into the midrange area. Hence, any risk of muddying the bass was never an issue. While the higher pitched and louder edges of the synths did add a touch of the midrange bloom, this was relatively minor and largely offset by the magnificent bass response which was deep, punchy, confident, driving and weighty."
"The airy nature of the midrange from the Benchmarks really came into their own here with the twangy guitar, adding tension and portent, retaining a welcome suite of reverb tails while the secondary percussion from the bongos and wood blocks also added to this spacious feeling. The bass-ridden piano keys emanated from a dark and mysterious place and retained the power from the Benchmark’s massy lower frequencies while the screaming string effects were drenched in emotion."
"At the sharp end is a 170mm custom-made polymer woofer and a 25mm soft dome tweeter while, at the rear, is an unusual rear-mounted toggle switch to choose between single and bi-amp modes. Related to that, instead of two pairs of binding posts, the company offers a SpeakON 4-pole connector for bi-amping (which is a lot neater than the usual system)."
"The space and air around the midrange helps these speakers to tackle even the most complex of arrangements while the allied meaty bass means that they will be a good performer within any genre of music."
- Paul Rigby, The Audiophile Man - audiophileman.com
Also in Reviews
DAC3 - Award Nominee - Best Digital Audiophile Product of 2024 (Cost No Object)
2024 Nominees
- Benchmark Media DAC3 B DAC, $1895
- Bricasti M3 DAC, $6000
- Bricasti M19 CD-SACD Player, $10,000
- T+A DAC 200, $7620
- Weiss Engineering Helios DAC, $21,995
"There was some debate about whether anybody can hear the differences above a good Chi-Fi DAC like the Topping D90. Unless you are missing most of your high-frequency hearing, you can hear where a high-end DAC makes a difference."
The Bricasti M3 is a great example of that performance in a $6,000 DAC."
"The Benchmark DAC3 B is an audiophile DAC, with pro audio roots, that punches way above its weight."
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