Dust Settled Consensus- is the Benchmark AHB2 an Audiophile Amplifier?

From my experience the AHB2 should not be used with speakers that go into 2 Ohm and I feel it does not provide thunderous power with speakers it even matches well with. When I demoed the Magico A3 speaker I took along a single AHB2 stereo amp and it was awful with the A3. A Mark Levinson amp and ML 585 integrated was so much better. I attributed the AHB2's poor showing to a lack of power. 

Running the amps in mono are actually not rated for 2 Ohm while the single stereo is officially rated for continuous operation in 2 Ohm. I had monos on my hard to drive Thiel CS3.7 and it was lacking grunt. The CODA #8 and the KRELL XD line were so much better in the thunder department. The D-Sonic also had way more grunt than the AHB2 though I thought the AHB2 was the cleanest and nicest sounding on the Thiel (minus the grunt on certain music).

What I use the AHB2 monos today is really a killer setup. I have the KEF LS50 Meta + KEF KC62 sub in my small office powered by the AHB2s. I had planned on buying the Yamaha NS3000 monitors (almost $10K) from Canada but the AHB2 and KEF LS50 Meta sounded so good I decided to save my money. 

I am done in the office system. 

My Livingroom system which will be rather costly will either use the Benchmark LA4 preamp or Holo Serene preamp (both ASR wet dreams). 

The following post on ASR about the AHB2 was so right on the money and so well written.

Review and Measurements of Benchmark AHB2 Amp | Page 5 | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum

If the ASR crowd approves of it because it measures well, I’d proceed with caution. Listening tests is not something they take into consideration most of the time. 
 

@avanti1960 I see you have XA25 and if that’s still the case and you like the Pass sound, I would just upgrade within the Pass product line. Yes it’s more expensive than the Benchmark but I’m pretty sure Pass Labs is next level stuff. 

If you like the XA25 and go to a Benchmark 

you will need to learn for the properly perform

ritualized Seppuku

I had the stereo AHB2 with the KEFs and I was unimpressed. I think the amp is flat and without color (compared to Ayre and AGT). Also Pass A25 was much meatier. 

I think the amp is flat and without color

Generally I find when the distortion goes lower, then things sounds quieter at the same measured SPL… Some people find those situations to be not to their liking.

…Irrespective of whether it is caused by the amp, speakers, or preamp… many people just really prefer some distortion.