Benchmark AHB2 Amplifier, opinions and competition

The Benchmark has finesse, clarity and musicality (whatever that means,)

I am considering an AHB2 but just made the switch from neutral tubes (Rogue Audio) to solid state and am not 100% happy.  I miss the transparency and midrange bloom of the tube amp.

Anyone make the switch from a tube amplifier to the AHB2 and how do you feel about it?  Thanks.  

My recent amp ownership has been Audio Research Ref 75 -> Luxman M900U -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Benchmark AHB2 Monos.

The Benchmark will not add bloom or warmth to the sound, in fact the entire point of the design is to not sound like anything and just get out of the way, i.e. to be transparent. To me it achieves that as well as anything I've heard.

The downside of that is that if you have problems upstream from the amp it's not going to do anything to hide them and will clearly show you what all your upstream components actually sound like.

If you want the amp to color the sound with bloom then you either need to stick with tubes or maybe try a warm and colored solid state amp like Luxman. The Luxman adds bloom but it's not the same as what you get with tubes and sounds more artificial to me. 

Bump for any more thoughts?

Benchmark is selling them as fast as they make them, along with the new preamp(s). There is a 3 week waiting period to get it. When I got mine a few years ago (not much people knew about it) there was no wait..