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If i had the money.....

I'd be ordering a set of the Parasound Halo JC-1 Monoblocks. I knew that these were going to be good, but i didn't know just HOW good. I've talked to a few people that have them and the "reviews" of these end users is just as strong as the recommendation that these amps receive in the February Stereophile.

Hard to imagine beating a product that was designed for optimum linearity / performance by an audio legend, laid out by an RF engineer in order to maintain consistent impedances throughout the entire circuit and then building the circuit with each part hand picked to "voice" the unit for optimum sonics by a "tweaker". The total approach to product building for $6K a pair !!! All of this with POWER to spare !!!

THD is predominantly all second harmonic i.e. not the typical odd order that most SS amps generate.

IMD of .0015 !!! Keep in mind that distortion typically goes up quite noticeably as power is raised and impedance lowered. This figure was taken at 4 ohms and at 600+ watts of output !!!

Output impedance of no higher than .06 ohms. This amp should keep the same "voice" and stability into just about any speaker. The power output verifies the stability and "robustness" of the circuit also....

Rated at 400 wpc @ 8 ohms

Power at clipping, broad band signal steady state:

8 ohms: 545 watts

Power at clipping, pulsed 1 KHz signal:

8 ohms: 586 watts

4 ohms: 1154 watts

2 ohms: 2255 watts

1 ohm: 4200 watts !!!

Any thougths / comments on this one ? Sean
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sean
sean OP
6,231 posts
 
Learn how to read between the lines and interpret spec's. This will give you greater insight as to what to expect out of a product. Listening to it in your system with your ears is the only way to finally judge something. Just be fair enough to work with the individual product within the confines of your system as there is no product that is a direct replacement for everything without some need for futher fine tuning. Sean
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tok20000's avatar
tok20000
608 posts
 
Sean,

Check out the specs of most tube amps.... If they even list them........ If one was to try to interpret them, they would probably think they sound absolutely horrible compared to most solid state amps.

My theory is that the specifications of an amplifier give you a very general idea (and I do mean general idea) of how much power it has, and what kind of speaker it can drive.

Everything else should be to your ear.

KF
rcrump
427 posts
 
Tok2000, it isn't the amount of distortion as much as the nature of the distortion as tubes have 2nd and 3rd harmonics and not much else, certainly no higher order odd harmonics....Spectral analysis equates to what we hear fairly well.....You want to talk distortion look at the recording process as looking at 5-20% on most recordings.....
sean OP
6,231 posts
 
I'm not going to get into the "tubes vs SS" debate on this one. I will only say that what some people think sounds "good" or "musical" is not necessarily "accurate". Nor is what some people find to be the sound of "accuracy" very "musical". There is a point somewhere in-between those two that i'm looking for and, judging by what the actual specs under test conditions show and the commentaries made by those that have listened to, reviewed and own these units, the JC-1 may fall into both categories.

I own both SS and tube amps and am looking for something that combines the best of both worlds in one simple to use package. Quite honestly, i could care less which method ( tube or SS ) such a piece ends up using, but SS is surely a LOT more convenient, reliable and cheaper in the long run. Sean
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cdc
1,783 posts
 
Will there be an economy model? Maybe 100 watts, 5 watts class "A", one box, internal dual mono?
Or is this the Parasound Halo A23 that Audio Advisor sells for $850???
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