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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
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
1,822 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???
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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