AHB2 and HPA4 Review - Ulrike Schwarz, Anderson Audio NY
ANDERSON AUDIO NEW YORK
is the creation of Jim Anderson and Ulrike Schwarz. Their combined 60+ years experience in producing and engineering music has resulted in many nominated and award winning productions.
JIM ANDERSON
is an internationally recognized recording engineer and producer of acoustic music for the recording, radio, television, and film industries. His music recordings have received eleven Grammy and Latin Grammy awards and 27 Grammy and Latin Grammy nominations; radio productions have received two George Foster Peabody Awards and television productions have received two Emmy nominations. In 2013 and 2018, Jim won the Grammy for Best Surround Album (Patricia Barber's "Modern Cool" - 2013 - and Jane Ira Bloom's "Early Americans" - 2018) and was nominated for Best Surround Album in 2014 with Jane Ira Bloom's "Sixteen Sunsets."
A graduate of the Duquesne University School of Music in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Jim was awarded with the music school's first Alumni Achievement Award in May 2018. He is also a professor with the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music in the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.
Jim was also the President of the Audio Engineering Society (AES).
ULRIKE SCHWARZ
is a sound engineer and producer of acoustic music in the radio, television and recording industries. Her recordings have received multiple international nominations and awards: two Echo Klassik Awards, Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenindustrie, Ars Acoustica, Diapason d’Or, a Grammy Nomination and many others.
In 2015, the BRKlassik production of Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis” featuring the choir and symphony orchestra of Bayerischer Rundfunk, conducted by Bernard Haitink, received a Grammy Nomination for “Best Choral Performance.”
Ulrike received her Tonmeister degree from the Hochschule der Künste Berlin (University of The Arts Berlin), Germany. She also holds a Master of Business Administration in “Innovation and Business Creation” from Technische Universität München(Technical University Munich), Germany.
From 2001 to 2015 Ulrike was employed by Bayerischer Rundfunk in Munich, Germany, as a senior sound engineer for large orchestral and jazz productions.
AHB2 - "The Power Amps are Fantastic."
"I use them as mono blocks due to my power hungry speakers."
"I hear clarity, precision and an openness in the treble that I haven't heard in my speakers before."
HPA4 - "The HPA4 and AHB2 are Made for Each Other"
"The HPA4 line and headphone preamp and the power amps are made for each other..."
- Ulrike Schwarz, Anderson Audio NY
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