Parasound Owners Thread - Page 38

I'm not so sure I subscribe to that idea as there are many threads currently here on this site that get maybe a post or two a month, sometimes less. The C-2 thread had waned slightly but was still quite active with three posts on the last day before lockdown.

To put it in perspective, this thread has garnered 1110 posts in a little over 3 1/2 years. The C-2 thread had 717 posts in a year before it was closed. It just seems VERY strange to me that a thread would be closed like that without the usual infighting that occurs and none of that was present at the time of closing.

Anyone else? I know a few of you who post here now also posted in that thread. I realize that it's been 8 1/2 years since the thread closed so memories might be a bit sketchy.

A quick question....... does anyone know what the class A operating range is for the HCA 1205a? I can't find the info anywhere.

Ditto, we also have a PARASOUND Halo A-51 for our home theater and 2-channel music. The A51 powers our L + R mains, our center channel and our side surrounds. We also have a PARASOUND Halo A-23 powering our front-height ambient speakers. Exceptional power amps, literally the finest amps we have ever owned. They are coupled to our ONKYO PR-SC5508 pre-pro. I demoed power amps costing upwards of $30,000 and the Halo was just as good if not better. Multiple movie studios, and Oscar winning Sound Engineers who have unlimited budgets and who can buy anything in the world for their sound studios have also come to the same conclusions:

http://www.parasound.com/about.php

My advice, for what it's worth: go with the PARASOUND Halo line, you won't be disappointed.

Hi, I am looking for users thoughts/reviews. I am a proud owner of a Parasound A51 amp, mated to an Arcam AV9 processor, powering Klipsch RF-83's and related surround speakers. I know there are many detractors of Klipsch products, but I enjoy their sound. My issue is the pre-pro combo sounds very passive to me. I am not sure if it is the Arcam processor and was wondering if anyone is currently using the same pre-pro set up or could offer there opinions on a matching processor to the A51. I use the system 50/50 music and movies.

I've never had an Arcam, but I've used Marantz, HK AVRs with Parasound amps and a Parasound P7 pre-amp.
All those combos I would not say they were passive. Very detailed, especially with the P7.

I've used Marantz and Lexicon with Parasound. Great combination, great amps, excellent customer service.

Thanks. What is the advantage of using a dedicated processor, such as a P7 or Lexicon, over using an AVR?

In the case of the P7, its strictly an analog pre-amp, that is connected to the AVR in HT by-pass. I prefer it for stereo and DVD-A.
In general, AVRs are cheaper than a pre/pro. One exception being the new Outlaw pre/pro. In a pre/pro, all the money you are spending goes into the processing and pre-amp. Which should mean, dollar for dollar, a pre/pro should be better than a same priced AVR, used for a pre.
Where I live I don't have a lot of choices, only one real audio store, fortunately its a Harman pro store. I got one of the last HK AVR 3600. The only HK avr with preouts.
I could take the bus over to Guayaquil and pick up a Marantz, Denon but I'd be paying a lot more. USA internet pricing does not compute here!

There's a lot of threads, discussions and disagreements on this forum about the question if a pro/amp is worth the premium over a AVR. If you can afford it, I think it is worth the extra money:
- Most processors are build using better quality components (DACs, chassis, power supply) and will give you more options like XLR connectivity
- A separate amplifier is always more powerful than an integrated on. The amp also doesn't share the power supply.
- Future upgrades are easier: in general you buy a (good) amp once, and you'll never have to upgrade it

Does a good pro/amp sound better than a high quality AVR? That might depend on your speakers and your room layout. But I think it definitely is an improvement.

This post is dedicated to those naysayers who claim there is little if any noticable audible differences between quality amplifiers. Two weeks ago I joined the Halo amp party by purchasing an A-31 to run the L/C/R duties in my cave. I had previously been utilizing an HCA-1205A which is now serving up sound to the back and side surrounds. The differences between the two are like night and day with Piano, Cymbal decay and dialogue being most noteworthy. Depth and detail are much improved and the sound overall is fuller across the spectrum. I was so floored by the improvement in sound that I e-mailed Richard Schram to inquire whether the 1205 might be in need of repair. His answer was pretty much a "no" as described in his words ............ "we’ve made a lot of progress since the 1205A was in production." No kidding!!!

With the amount of improvement I've experienced by going "Halo", I WILL be upgrading my HCA1205A to an A-51 when funds and Wifey permit.

ONe of my best buys ever was the 2100 and 2250 I bought last year. I have retired the 2100 and am now using the 2250 to handle the fronts (DefTech 7002s) with an Anthem MRX300 and couldn't be happier. (Well OK I could be happier but not for the dollars invested!)

How do you like your mrx300? I'm picking one up next week to use as a pre-amp with my halo a23 amps..they look great..but I have heard there a little buggy,and needs few firmware updates..but I like arc,and of course its a anthem

So far so good. I did update the firmware but not for any issue. Plays very nice with my 2250.

Thanks tiger!.. Can't wait to get it..should go well with my paradigm studio 60s and parasound amp..how is the video processing on the Mrx?.. And does it do volume overlay on TV?. Sorry for all the questions..I'm just trying to get as much info from users as possible

Yes there's a lot of nayosayers out there!.. I was on another thread about cables and speaker wire..etc.trying to explain what a improvement the halo a23 made in my system and they all said I was hearing things!..a amp is a amp..etc..if they only knew the truth!
My halo amp changed everything for the better in a big way..and when I die its coming with me!

Very nice OSD there is a huge thread on the Anthem receivers with a ton of great info. You won't be disappointed!

Sometimes I wonder how many of them do know the truth. But are either unable or unwilling to get a nice amp themselves so it is a way to attack someone who has something they don't.

The first time I hooked up a power amp to the pre-outs of an AVR, I was astounded by what I heard with music selections that I knew very, very well. In addition to greater volume, soundstage and clarity, the music now had a "weight" to it where it did not before. Congrats on your new AVR purchases and using them in conjunction with Parasound amps. Whether they be Halos or New Classics, they are extremely fine amps and great values in todays market.

Hi all,

This is the wrong forum for-em, apologies, but here goes anyway.

Lookin to cool a large size av cabinet, it has ventilation but needs more. The application would be for a parasound 5250. I was considering going with a dual 120mm, 12 volt, non thermal control, variable speed fan kit from cool components. It would be triggered from a switched outlet on one of my power conditioners.

The cool components fan kits seem of higher quality vs coolerguys stuff from what I could discern on the websites. Any advice on the install/quality of the units would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

I don't think you need a huge fan if the cabinet is tall. You should get a good chimney effect if there is a good intake at the bottom and opening at the top. Fan just needs to evacuate the heat. In my Standout designs cabinet I have their cooling kit which has shelves with openings and two small 12v fans and it works well. I have a 2520 and Oppo as well as two Sonos Amps on one side and an Anthem MRX300 on the other side. Not crazy amount of heat, but enough to warm it up without the fans. I find a taller rack stays cooler. (Chimney effect again)

Should've specified, the cabinet is three shelves wide, two high(65/24/24). The 120mm have the advantage of spinning at lower rpm's(controllable), while moving a larger amount of air thus less noise. The cabinet sits in my den about 18 feet from the seating area so noisy fans would be issue.

The ventilation in the cabinet consists of a couple of vented openings in the bottom, and one in the upper rear panel, no vents in sides or front (door is glass). Going to have the processor sitting on the top shelf above the amp. Was planning on doing the fan install in the rear top portion of the bottom shelf only, and letting the processor naturally vent itself.

I checked out some middleatlantic fan kits, but they didn't have what I was looking for and were super pricey. The kit I'm looking at from cool components is a 12 volt variable that allows you to control fan speed through selectable voltage on the power transformer. It would be always on when the amp is on, through a switched outlet on power conditioner, no temperature controller.

I was hoping for feed back on the type of fan kits anyone else uses on this forum.

Again sorry for the thread high-jack.


Any advice greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

I bought a 3 fan kit for my cabinet from these guys. It came with a selectable voltage transformer and the fans are relatively quiet. Price is much less than what you'd expect to pay.

Hey guys, I am having an issue and wondering if anyone has any idea what is going on. I have two Parasound JC1's that are connected to a Bryston processor via XLR's. They are biwired to a pair of Kef Blade speakers. I am having an issue though some how the tweeters seemed to have gone dead on the speakers when the volume was turned to a moderate level. Now the tweeters do not seem to work at all. To see what was going on I connected a different pair of Kef R900's to the amps and at low volume the same thing happened to the speaker on the right, nothing came out of the tweeter. I connected those same speakers to a different reciever and the same problem occured. I am wondering if the JC1's could be somehow blowing the tweeters on the speakers? Is there a setting I have them on that could be doing this or could there be something wrong with the amps? Any input would be greatly appreciated, if I get the tweeters replaced I want to make sure this does not happen again.

^^^^^
Call Parasound if you want to get any answers to if there is a problem with the JC1s.

Seems unlikely to have two amps fail at once, common to your problem scenario is the processor. If you ran some sort of room acoustic set up, there-in may lie the problem. I noticed once when I ran the audessey routine, it cranked the higher bands on my center channel eq to the max, re ran the routine and it went back to normal. If you can view your eq settings look there first.

It may also of been distortion that took out your tweaters. As powerful as the mono blocks are they can be pushed to clipping. At higher listening levels you have to listen carefully for distorted sound, once noticed you have to back off the listening levels. Dirty sound can be produced by driving components too hard and is also very dependant on the source material.

For every 3db you turn your volume up you require double the power to run clean sound. The wattage requirement snow balls very quickly. 400 watts is a lot of power, if the speakers aren't playing loud enough for you in your room you either need more power, or speakers with a higher sensitivity.

Hope this helps, good luck

Cheers

Good post, I'll look into it. Will probably call Parasound tomorrow but that does make sense, unlikely both would fail.

Hello Parasound lovers! Happy Holidays too. Just wondering why going by the specs the Classic2100 pre looks better than the p3 in fact most every pre-amplifier looks better spec wise. The p3 is not a tube design.
Also, i noticed that the a23 has 45 peak amperes per channel and the a21 has 60. Does that mean the the a21 will constantly put out more current or does it just have the ability to put out more at higher listening levels when needed

has anyone heard the halo a series amps with a benchmark dac1 as a pre. I was told it would make a good combo because the benchmark concentrates more on the reference aspect and the halo on the musical aspect

I'm using an A23 with Audiolab M-DAC that uses the ESS Sabre chip. It sounds wonderful. Musical but sometimes a little too revealing. This is only an issue with lower quality recordings. I haven't heard the Benchmark DAC but I think it would sound very similar to my setup.

I have a peachtree audio dac*it with an ess sabre dac too.
I was just thinking the benchmark because of the great reference dac, GREAT headphone amplifier and quite astonishing specs on the pre-amp plus it's balanced.

Yes, I'm really getting tired of the shouting down and piling on that goes on when you suggest that 2 amps might sound different. Oh well, they can buy all the entry level crap that they want and call it sonic gold, it doesn't change the facts. My A21 made a believer out of me.