Running Benchmark AHB2 in bridged mode and 4 Ohm Speaker

@georgehifi With Legacy Aeris what you are suggesting is not possible.

@ramtubes, Impedance minimum for top section of Aeris is only 3.8 Ohm (this information is from the source). So it seems AHB2 is fine with that.

Which amplifier would you think can be a better option than Benchmark AHB2 given that I have gotten myself one amplifier for $2100?. What do you think in technical terms another amplifier can be better than Benchmark and at what price and size?. I am looking for 150 watts with no distortion per channel easy, which means no crossover distortion or anything else. Just because I have spent some money on a speaker does not mean I am going to weight that and buy an expensive amplifier. If I could find a $2k Legacy Aeris I would have purchased that instead. I want a great amplifier optimized for cost.

Please let me know I have been looking for a while. I just cannot audition 10 amplifiers to compare and select which sounds good in my room and with the speakers I have. I have to look at the specs, build quality, technical innovation and what generally people think. Anything that comes close to this in my opinion is Hypex NC500 based modules which again can be obtained for $2k approximately. I will consider if you can point me few of them.

General rule of thumb is fine but at the end I am constrained by my experience and capacity to audition amps and I like to re-verify past ideas. Technology changes and things change. If someone says X amp sounds good then I have no context, I will go read the specs, read the forums and reviews and move on.

Thanks for your questions.Right now you have an amplifier and speaker that are working for you. It would be wise to find out some things about how you listen.

Do you have and SPL meter, the RadioShack one is quite good? The cellphone aps accuracy is unknown but better than guessing, Guessing never works.

Do you have a meter that can read AC or Peak volts? An old analog meter would work also. We need to find your power level unless you already know it.

The sensitivity appears to be 95 dB. Is this at 2 or 2.8 volts? Try to find out, makes a 2 to 1 difference in power,

No one needs an amplifier with specs this good. If the distortion was a four timer higher you would not hear it. I hope the amp has good sound but I would not own it due its complexity. Distortion measurements are done steady state, music may not enjoy those same specs. They worked hard to get distortion this low yet I am unimpressed at how they did it. Look inside that amp and then a Bryston or something traditional. Look at a Hafler, or TransNova, perhaps even a tube amp. This amp has too many parts and the failure rate if chip capacitors is alarming. I pulled a noisy one out of a Mic pre. Last thing I would have expected.

What happens in Electronics is someone gets on a tear to make an amp that excells in some area. If they do this by creating some thing very complex they can make a monster.

Read the Atkinson review. His test equipment is the best and latest test gear yet he can hardly measure the distortion. No one needs this low distortion. How will you know how long it will stay that way?

The coments in this thread about the small increase in distortion was like children arguing over pennies. Same for the damping factor as I have pointed out.

Bottom line, go get a real amplifier. (My shields are UP) :)

Is this amplifier made completely in China, or boards or parts from China? I cant imagine a surface-mount board that large being populated in USA.

geek101 OP227 posts11-16-2018 2:07pm@georgehifi With Legacy Aeris what you are suggesting is not possible.

Of course it is, the plate amp still drives the lower bass as is, the passive xover is split (easy job) so the original terminals do just the mid/highs and a second set of speaker terminals (that has to be put on) do the 10" mid/woofer.
So your vertical AHB2, one channel drives the 10" mid/bass and the other channel drives the Tweeters and 8’’midrange, the plate amp still drives the 2 x 12’ low bass.
And your other ABH2 does the other speaker.

Cheers George

@ramtubes Agree with you that great specs on a single tone at some frequency or even frequency sweep tests does not really come close to complexity of music. But at this point that is all I have.  Good point about complexity yes it is more complex but the amp has been out there for a bit. And people who have it never seem to complain why it failed or how it faulted. Still I see these (amplifiers) as simple things compared to stuff I am aware of. These days manufacturing and design has come a long way with computer simulation etc. Testing techniques etc have come a long way. I am more concerned with someone in their backyard building a complex amp more than anything else.

Agree with you that good specs might not translate to good sound. But I cannot go on some one saying some monster class A/B or class A sounded great and since it is big and consumes a lot of power I have to go for it.

I have a class A SET tube amp and I am going to compare with this amp along with class D (Hypex NC500) before making my mind up on few things. I am in the bucket of people who think all good amp sound the same.

At the end can an amp just amplify the source faithfully and get out of the way. Can it just get out of the way!!. This is what I am going for and I want it at lowest price possible. 

Suggest me few amps better than AHB2 at this price and I will consider them, I am only looking for a great amp that do justice to my speakers. I don't have any past baggage or any biases.

Suggest me few amps better than AHB2 at this price and I will consider them, I am only looking for a great amp that do justice to my speakers. I don’t have any past baggage or any biases.

I did, a pair of used John Curl Parasond Halo JC1’s in high bias class-A mode on your speakers will sound majestic. I heard them on Wilson Alexia’s and they were just a little behind the Gryphon Antillion Evo. And they come with 5 year warranty.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pair-of-Parasound-JC1-Mono-Amplifiers/132849036390?hash=item1eee6b6c66:g:E5...

or a black pair here on Agon $200 more
https://www.audiogon.com/listings/lis97eja-parasound-jc1-black-pair-solid-state?refsource=hifishark

Cheers George