![]() We realized that our two companies had complementary skills that could make a joint project a success. This was the classic lunch with schematics and numbers scribbled on napkins. They had applied for patents and were looking to turn their ideas into a product. We met for lunch and they began to tell me about a new amplifier topology that they were working on. In November of 2011, I was attending the AES conference and I ran into Laurie Fincham and Jayant Datta, some good friends from THX. We were going to have to think out of the box if we were going to reach our performance goals. It was to have a switched-mode power supply and a unique servo-biased push-pull output stage. We began to look at unconventional solutions to this problem, and had a design code-named "PA1" in progress by June of 2011. One obstacle was that push-pull crossover distortion can be hard to manage in a large amplifier. The goal was to meet or exceed the performance of Allen's DA101, while scaling up the power by a factor of 10. The "PA1" ProjectĪllen retired in 2006 due to health issues, and in 2011 we began to talk about making Allen's dream for a power amp a reality. Allen had often talked about building a bigger general-purpose power amplifier that could match the performance of the DA101. ![]() We couldn't buy an amplifier that came close to the performance of our distribution amplifiers, so we used them in all of our critical listening tests. For many years, we used our DA101 distribution amplifiers to drive the speakers in our listening room. ![]() Nevertheless, they were capable of providing spectacular performance when driving 8-Ohm speakers. The DA101 distribution amplifiers were not intended for driving speakers. This requirement meant that the amplifiers needed to be capable of driving an 8-Ohm load. These amplifiers were designed to simultaneously drive 10 balanced audio lines while withstanding short circuits on as many as 1/3 of the 30-Ohm outputs. The power output was about 40 watts in bridged mono. The Benchmark DA101 distribution amplifier had a 160 kHz bandwidth, THD+N of 0.00044%, and a SNR of 130 dB. This specialized application demanded an audio power amplifier with very low noise, very low distortion, and a very wide frequency response. Burdick, began building analog audio distribution amplifiers for television networks. Over 33 years ago (in 1983), Benchmark's founder, Allen H. Here is the full story behind this award-winning amplifier: The DA101 - Benchmark's First Power Amplifier The AHB2 Power Amplifier was Introduced in 2016 on Benchmark's 33rd Anniversary.
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