Special - Buy one component and save 25% on up to three components of equal or lesser value. Offer ends Dec. 6 - Free shipping on USA orders over $700.

0

Your Cart is Empty

LA4 Review - Mike Prager, FutureAudiophile.com

Future Audiophile Logo

"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."

Benchmark LA4 Line Amplifier - front view

"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."

Read the full review at FutureAudiophile.com


Also in Reviews

DAC3 - Award Nominee - Best Digital Audiophile Product of 2024 (Cost No Object)

DAC3 - Award Nominee - Best Digital Audiophile Product of 2024 (Cost No Object)

by Benchmark Media Systems December 01, 2024

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."

Benchmark DAC3 B with Silver Faceplate

 

Read Full Post
Future Audiophile Logo

AHB2 Review - Mike Prager, Future Audiophile

by Benchmark Media Systems September 23, 2024

AHB2 Power Amplifier with Silver Faceplate

"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

Read Full Post
AHB2 Review - Constantine Soo, Dagogo

AHB2 Review - Constantine Soo, Dagogo

by Benchmark Media Systems April 02, 2024

 

Benchmark AHB2 - Black

 

"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

Read Full Post