Integrated amp with HT bypass for Focal Electra 1008 Be

Had a demo session today of these:
- Parasound Halo Integrated
- Parasound P5 + A23
- Parasound P5 + A21

Parasound Halo Integrated was quite nice sounding. Bass, treble everything was there. Treble and mid range was sounding quite well, until any bass sound kicked in. If there was any continuous bass sound in the background, treble sounds were instantly losing their impact. Also, sound stage was more or less between speakers. Speakers didn't exactly disappear.

Then we switched to P5 + A23. First thing that I immediately noticed was that bass disappeared. I made them double check to see if P5 had it's crossover feature turned on, it was off. But overall it felt like bass notes were very muted. Comparing P5+A23 to Halo Integrated. Integrated totally wins.

Then switched to P5 + A21. First of all, A21 is gigantic :D Didn't expect it to be that large. It is similarly sized to Maestro I guess. This combo again completely lacked deep bass sounds. However, sound had a 3D feel to it, instrument separation was much better than Halo or P23. Sound stage started to extend beyond the speakers. And even though it lacked bass, however much it had was more controlled. Amp never lost power, always had impact, very impressive to listen to overall.

I let the dealer know that P5 was somehow sucking the sub bass out comparing to Halo Integrated. He seemed surprised, he said that we should try P7 instead of P5. Tried, but again it completely lacked bass, maybe 2% better but nowhere near Halo Integrated's sub bass level.

Anyway, I think whole demo session wasn't good overall. I wish I could hear A21 with a proper pre. I thought of asking to connect Halo's pre out to A21, however we were already there for more than 1.5 hours, so decided to skip that. Also, dealer didn't seem very knowledgable.

I could home demo PSound Halo Integrated. But not sure about A21, it is too heavy and big for me to carry it home :/ I overall like PSound Halo Integrated though. Especially it might win over Puccini once PSound is connected to the sub. I was hoping to immediately hate the sound of PSound and make my decision to buy Puccini right there, but couldn't hate it :D I got some thinking to do! :D

Writing just for future reference for others.

I steered away from all my initial plans and ended up with Class D monoblocks ! Yay! :D I know, some people are very against Class D sound, however in all AV shows, I was always attracted to Class D amps. My favorite so far being Kii Threes with integrated hypex amps.

I purchased 2 monoblock amps built with Hypex NCore NC500 modules. From a nice and super helpful gentleman named Tibor from Apollon Audio. These specifically: http://www.apollonaudio.com/hypex-nc500-monoblock-amplifier-apollon-audio-nc800-slm/  I placed the order last week Wednesday, received the amps yesterday! They are looking super fine ! :D Couldn't try their sound yet, since I still don't have a preamp with XLR output. I will have Rotel RC-1590 for home demo this evening. I should be able to get some sound out of the amps :D
If they sound close to what people tell about these online, I will be a very happy listener! Another great advantage of these is that sound goes trough an opamp, which is interchangeable. I ordered it with 2 opamps already, will try both and return the ones I don't like. But later in future I can change opamps to change sound signature. Thinking of trying some Burson opamps in future.

After I try these for a while, I am thinking of ordering either one more monoblock or another stereo but use only 1 channel of it,, for driving center speaker from AVR. I am thinking of B&P IcePower 1200AS based amp, Apollon audio has these as well.

Currently trying to decide for Preamp, it will be either Rotel RC-1590 or Parasound P5 I think. I am also checking passive options, but I am leaning more towards active preamps currently, with ht bypass of course. If I will find the sound too analytical then I might think of a tube preamp to smooth things out. But I think I would be better off playing around with changing opamps on the amp.

Thank you all for your help !

@denizpiri how are those hyper monoblocks? 

@hudo Loving them! Sound gets better in time, especially in the first 20-30 hours of use. Bass is great instantly, however upper range needs time to get in shape. Bass control is crazy good, the amp is super fast and impactful. I am so happy with my system right now, never listened to any better system that sounds as good for all music genres. I hate systems that sounds great with slow jazz, but when you throw dubstep amp/speakers can't keep up. This is totally not that, it is great at everything I threw at it so far.

I leave the amp on all the time. I built a 12v relay based switcher myself, that is connected to my AVR's 12V trigger output, that switches between my DAC (RME ADI-2 DAC) and AVR's outputs. So, basically for music, I use it directly connected to RME ADI-2 DAC, and sounds crazy good.

I also removed the power light of the Apollon Hypex power amps. I can also turn the screen off on the DAC. That allows me to listen to music at night time with no lights. Love it! :D

Let me know if you have any specific question.