Benchmark AHB2 - To 'mono' or not to 'mono'

My first question was going to be whether you really need the extra power for your situation. It seems you may not.

JA at Stereophile measured the Pulsar’s sensitivity at 83.5dB(B)/2.83V/m, which is quite low, so certainly some situations/program may benefit from more power than the 100W/ch of a single AHB2.
https://www.stereophile.com/content/joseph-audio-pulsar-loudspeaker-measurements

There would be absolutely no issues running the AHB2 bridged with your Pulsars - their impedance is mostly above 8ohms and only drops as low as 6.5ohms.
The distortion specs of the AHB2 in bridged mode will be just as vanishingly low as in stereo mode (see Audio Precision measurements conducted by JA and elsewhere).

Regardless of the measurements, I can say that in my case (ATC SCM-19 - low sensitivity 8ohm rated speakers like yours) I got an audible improvement from bridged AHB2’s.
The sound was essentially the same (no surprises) but more ease and better sound staging with the bridged amps. I also took the opportunity afforded by mono blocks to change to short speaker cable runs (and longer XLR interconnects). This probably contributed to the improved sound I noted. Certainly, being able to run very short speaker cables is an advantage of monoblocks.

Bottom line.
If you don’t want/need the extra power or the cabling flexibility afforded by mono blocks, just stick with the stereo AHB2 - but rest assured if you decide to go to bridged mono AHB2’s you won’t encounter a sonic penalty with your speakers.

Why people find posting this sort of stuff amusing is beyond me. Yawn. 

Yes exactly - personally I wouldn't go back to one amp.
I just didn't want to create unreasonable expectation about the addition. I do think the improvements extend beyond merely providing more headroom. 
As long as you understand this is an incremental improvement, rather that some sort of paradigm shift.    

@wwoodrum - only you can say whether you need more headroom with your room/speakers.
My room size is similar to yours and my speaker sensitivity around the same - and truthfully a single AHB2 drove my ATC’s to high levels without issue. Nonetheless adding a second amp improved the sound in terms of dynamic ease and soundstaging.
My motivation was not only the extra headroom but, as previously mentioned, the placement flexibility that mono blocks offered - allowing me to tidy up my setup using short speaker cables.

As you probably realise from the specifications, unlike conventional amplifiers, there is no downside to bridging the AHB2. The error correction circuitry ensures the Benchmark’s distortion remains vanishingly low as impedance drops/varies. This may well be another reason for the AHB2’s perceived neutrality vs other amplifiers - i.e. distortion in other amplifiers typically varies with impedance (whether bridged or not).
Of course the output impedance does double when bridged which means damping factor halves - in the AHB2’s case dropping from from 350 to 175 (at 20Hz/8ohms). This is still 10x higher than a typical transformer coupled tube amp and is unlikely be of much/any audible consequence. Certainly I heard none in my setup.

If you get a second amp you have the option to try both bridged mono and vertical bi-amping - so why not? For bi-amping you will need an XLR splitter of some sort if your preamp doesn’t have dual sets of XLR outputs.
Both options have the advantage of dedicating a single amp per channel and using short speaker cables. The bi-amp option further allows a seperate amp for woofer/tweeter - though most of the work is still being done by the amp on the woofer, which still has only 100W/8ohms.
You will gain a slight increase in headroom with the vertical bi-amp option while bridged mono will give a significant 6dB more headroom.
With more sensitive speakers, where extra headroom is redundant, the bi-amp option may well be preferable.
I use bridged mono and bi-wire to my ATC speakers (allowing removal of the link at the speakers).

I’m not going to gush over the improvements offered by the second amp as in overall terms they are not massive. Nonetheless, in my setup it does sound better.
Only you can decide if it’s value for money.
Some people spend more on speaker cables than the cost of an AHB2 amp so, if you’re into expensive cables, you could potentially save money moving to mono blocks and short cable lengths ;-)

Sorry @mijostyn when you mentioned damping factor doubling and adding a resistor in the primary I thought you were taking the piss.