"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."
"The audience for the Benchmark LA4 ... is the audiophile who wants to hear the music on each recording presented in ultra-clean sound that is simultaneously truthful and engaging."
"Instrumental and vocal timbres were spot-on, and silent backgrounds increased the music’s clarity without any sense of artificial enhancement."
"As I listened through the LA4, I found the violin timbre more palpable and less electronic than I’d heard it before."
"The piano sound, too, was clean and all of a piece, from the lowest bass notes through the treble."
"I was swept away by the musical transparency of the Benchmark LA4, by its freedom from high-frequency distortion, and by the increased engagement those qualities allowed. This was especially true in music like Mozart’s string quartets, in which a few bowed string instruments play fully exposed, and any added harshness is all too plain."
"In everything I played through the Benchmark LA4, textures and nuances of voices and instruments came through superbly, making each voice or instrument seem more individual and less generic. That kind of transparency is, musically speaking, a remarkable accomplishment."
