Some love for the Benchmark HPA4/LA4

Are LA4 and HPA4 identical in the preamp function, the only difference being HPA4 adds headphone amp? Or other there other differences?

Edit:  nevermind.  Found the answer on benchmark site that yes, they are identical other than the headphone outputs.

yyzsantabarbara - Totally agree about the performance of Benchmark.  I have the AHB2 and DAC3L and will be adding the LA4.  But in reading all of your posts, what I really wanted to know was what brand of Scotch were you drinking?

Not sure when which photo you are referring to but at the moment in my office I have an empty bottle of Johnnie Walker Double Black (not bad) and a few drops of Oban left in the bottle. Believe it or not, when I went for my last physical (age 53) my doctor told be to drink more scotch. It does wonders for me so he said drink more.

BTW - I sold my HPA4 last week and I am now using a Topping pre90 preamp. It sounds like the HPA4 minus the great headphone amp and the volume dial on the HPA4 is nicer. However, the Topping pre90 cost $599 and actually seems to measure better than the HPA4.

The HPA4/Topping pre90 are my second preamps so I decided to recoup my cash and get the Topping pre90. My main preamp is the CODA 07x.

I should add that the Topping pre90 is as bare bones as it gets. It just takes source inputs and adds volume to it. No balance adjustment, muting, and the interface is pretty crap. However, none of that matters in my use case. The HPA4 is a much more fuller feature set and sounds the same (to me) as the Topping pre90.

Has anyone out there compared the LA4 to a good LDR based preamp such as a Tortuga?  My priorities are transparency and a black background.  The Tortuga does well on this - just wondering if the LA4 May equal it in those areas while offering the benefits of an active preamp.  Thanks for any comments.