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RE: N core

I'm not really interested in the technology of amps, nor much their specs regarding matters beyond my low interest level! I just want the things to provide music that really excites - the nearest SENSATION to live music, whether there's a bit of distortion or not. SETs have high harmonic distortion, but they are the ones that make the sound so good.

I had my Benchmark for about 8 weeks although I was away for a couple of weeks. It was used quite a lot during that time and I listened to it exclusively before doing any comparison tests. I wrote my one and only equipment view here - http://db.audioasylum.com/mhtml/m.html?forum=amp&n=205426&highlight=benchmark+ahb&search_url=%2Fcgi%2Fsearch.mpl%3Fforum%3Dgeneral%26searchtext%3DEmotiva

I presume your A-21 is a Sugden. After I returned the Benchmark, I tried many power amps including Sugden FPA-4, Accuphase A-36, GamuT D200, Quad Platinum, NAD M32, Micromega M100.

I would have loved to find the Accuphase in particular provided the sound I wanted. It is Class A and so beautifully built, with very good controls and facilities. It was certainly a step up compared with the Class A Sugden, but not such that I'd keep it in favour of my old 845-based SET monoblocs.

The Quad was a big disappointment, but the Gamut was wonderful. For a while I was using this D200 fed by NAD M12 digital preamp and was very happy. When I home demo'd a NAD M50.2 CD player / CD ripper / hard drive music store / streamer I was offered the loan of a NAD M32 integrated amp. To my surprise this equals the much more costly M12 + D200 combo. Now this arguably a digital amp, although not so according to NAD's white paper attached - the M32 uses an updated version of the M2's processor. It's effectively a "DAC that can power speakers". Whatever its technology, it really is an excellent amp and FAR more enjoyable than the Benchmark. It's considerably better than the Quad and Sugden (and Red Wine) and marginally better than the Accuphase. It's advantage over the M12 + D200 combination is solely cost and reduction of cables.

I love it and the M50.2 that I bought recently. That's all I need. I now need no CD player as the M50.2 plays CDs, no PC to rip CDs, no NAS to store files, no radio and no streamer, as the M50.2 does all of these things. I have one digital AES/EBU cable and one pair of speakers - that's it! Peter

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