Benchmark AHB2 Amplifier, opinions and competition

Amps using Hypex should give good competition, such as the ATI AT522NC or AT542NC.


The only downside to the Benchmark is “only” 100W into 8ohm; though I doubt you even need 25W with your setup.

@rvpiano 
 
Yeah, 100W into 8ohm doesn’t seem like a lot for $3000, but people overestimate how much wattage they need. It also doesn’t help when you have companies like Sim/Moon who sell a monoblock amp that delivers 888W (for ~$120,000), the funny thing is that it has more distortion than the Benchmark. 
 
Even 25W is good enough for most setups (if you’re speakers are 84dB sensitive and you sit 20ft away, that’s a different story).

@jetter

They might have stated in-room sensitivty (Klipsch almost always does this for instance, but they are even worse and use corner (2-wall) loading, so +6dB).

Bass-limited speakers usually get +2dB while almost full-range speakers get +3dB.

So, if they stated 89dB, it might be 87dB in actuality, or even 83dB if it were a Klipsch speaker.

Also, that’s at 6ohm, which takes in 1.335x the wattage, so my stated 25W which was for 8ohm nominal is thus >33W, not to mention if their minimum impedance take up a large bandwidth.

100W (8ohm) is +3dB vs 50W (8ohm); 
https://www.audiocheck.net/blindtests_level.php?lvl=3
It’s a good difference in volume.

You also don’t know if it’s just a better amp in general and that’s also why it sounds better to you.

@rvpiano 
 
The music fairies sprinkled their magic. 

@rvpiano

Blame the music studios not the gear 😬.

Good gear just shows which songs were handled with care, which ones wanted to win the “loudness war”, and which ones were simply not handled with any care.

If after a few days it still doesn’t sound good, try alter speaker placement (reduce toe-in for instance), and see if that helps. If not, then return it.