Traditional class AB power amplifiers typically have unregulated linear power supplies. The length of the power cord and the resistance of the fuses can reduce the maximum output power and increase the THD. In contrast, Benchmark products use regulated switching supplies and these provide...

Don't waste your time and money with fancy fuses. The AC input feeds an AC/DC converter that provides 12 Vdc to a series of DC/DC converters that provide +/-18 V to the analog circuits. Additional voltages are derived from the 12 Vdc rail to drive the digital logic. There is nothing you can do...

The firmware can be updated by installing the following kit (needed for units manufactured before 11/05/2018 only!): HPA4 Firmware Update Kit The FIRMWARE is like the BIOS in your computer. It rarely needs to be updated. It just supports hardware calls from the SOFTWARE. The downloadable...

NOTE the distinction between FIRMWARE and SOFTWARE in this post! The SOFTWARE is the downloadable screen software and is the first number shown on the "ABOUT" screen. The FIRMWARE is contained in a ROM on the main board and is the second number shown on the "ABOUT" screen. Old units (prior to...

The answer is simple: Firmware 1.0.1 does not support software versions above 1.0.1 These units were manufactured in the first 25 days of production. All units manufactured after 11/05/2018 should have the current firmware which is 1.0.2 These early 1.0.1 firmware units will need to come in...

Benchmark products are designed to have very high immunity to conducted and radiated interference. You will find that you can pause the music, turn the volume to maximum and hear absolutely no noise coming from your speakers at a point-blank range. Turn on a blender in the kitchen, flick some...

The advantage of an all-Benchmark system is that the interfaces can all operate at studio levels (+24 dBu) instead of at much lower consumer signal levels. Most consumer-grade balanced interfaces operate at a maximum of 4 Vrms which is 14.2 dBu. The extra 10 dB of signal level provided by using...

There are many factors that go into the design of an audio product. It takes more than a collection of quality parts to get great sound. Don't ever get too focused on one component or subsystem. All of the parts need to work together. Here is an analogy: If you build a house with a...

50 W into 16 Ohms Stereo. 200 W into 15 Ohms bridged mono.

There is no need to add resistors in parallel with the speakers.

The unbalanced RCA and balanced XLR outputs are not individually controllable. If you are switching between two amplifiers, I would recommend an external passive XLR switch box like this one...

The line outputs (balanced and unbalanced) are controlled separately from the headphone outputs. You can mute the line outputs while listening to headphones or vice versa. Moreover, the volume of the headphone and line outputs can be controlled independently. Both can operate at the same time...

This is exactly the type of mismatch the HPA4 and LA4 preamplifiers are designed to solve. The stepped volume control provides gain or attenuation (up to 15 dB gain and up to 112 dB of attenuation). The low-noise input on the HPA4 provides direct interfacing with 4 volt balanced and 2 V...

Yes we made some changes to the remote, but the buttons and codes are the same. Both versions are functionally identical. The newer version has rubber buttons and is thinner than the old version.

Tobes, You describe the most common way of deriving a balanced signal from an unbalanced. We do this differently. In the topology you describe, the diffamp becomes the limiting factor from a noise standpoint. Our technique has a 9 dB to 19 dB SNR advantage over this common technique. In the...