2. amps-preamps
  3. 1042611447

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
 
As far as i know, the closest thing that Parasound offers to this would be the HCA-3500. The 3500 is high powered and is still very different in terms of the quality of parts used, but from what i understand, it can be modified to be quite a good sounding unit. Only problem is that by the time you're done with all of the modifications, the only thing that you have left of the original 3500 is the chassis, transformers and circuit board. The cost runs about $5K for CTC to modify these and then you still end up with an amp that isn't as good as the JC-1, which would cost less ( total ) than buying the 3500 and having it modified. On top of that, the JC-1 will still walk away from it for multiple reasons.

I can see a good sized market for a smaller stereo amp ( 10 watts Class A, 100 @ 8 / 200 @ 4 ) and Bob, John & Carl should talk to Parasound about doing something like that. If you or anyone else would be interested in such things, you should probably contact Parasound directly and ask if they have any plans to market such a product. It would let them know that there is a market for something like that if they were to get multiple inquiries. Sean
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rcrump
427 posts
 
Our next project for Parasound will likely be CDP with some preamp functions.....The JC-1 was an experiment for Parasound and it appears to have worked well.....They have had all the amps engineered by Curl and they are all pretty much the same with the differences being layout and parts quality......It is Parasound's choice if they want Carl Thompson and I to work on their other products......
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,216 posts
 
Rcrump, please describe the "voicing" process. What exactly is it and how do you go about it?
rcrump
427 posts
 
Voicing is easy, just parts choices based upon twenty-five years of playing with various parts....I keep a journal of what various parts do in various parts of a circuit as most resistors measure pretty much the same and they all sound different in use as do caps, wires, switches and connectors....You do it long enough and you can look at a piece and tell what it will sound like just looking at the parts used.....I come from the school of get your hands dirty, take notes and before long it will start making sense.....Voicing the Parasound amp took about a year and a half of work on the HCA-3500 I used as a prototype and then a few months with the JC-1 prototypes before the units went into production....The bulk of the time was in break-in as I rebuilt the HCA-3500 in several stages......I voice for complete break-in and complete warm-up, 60 days and 5 days.....
tok20000's avatar
tok20000
608 posts
 
Rcrump,

I was just stating that stats on amps are misleading. As you reinforced with your response to my previous post. Different types of distortion can mean different things to one's ears.

However, I will still maintain that stats can be very misleading while many times having little to do with how an amplifier sounds. I am sure you are familiar with the THD wars in the 80's when the theory was that the least Total Harmonic Distortion was BEST. This THD war was nonsense.

Anyway, I can look at stats all day in a magazine about amps and really have no idea on how those amps will sound in my system. Too many stats are misleading at best. For example the 'dampening factor' stat. This stat is touted by many amp designers; however, measuring dampening factor is something else entirely. The stat itself varies with the length of speaker cable you are running. Thus if you want more 'damping factor' you do the measurement with a shorter run of speaker cable.

KF
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