Bryston 7B SST vs. Parasound Halo JC 1 shootout...

I think Marty at Bound for Sound will be issuing a review also. I believe that he had the Pass X-250 and an Edge amp at the time for comparison. When I spoke with him, he told me that the Pass was holding its own and each amp offered a different sonic view.

Every review in Stereophile and every other mag for that matter is a rave review.

Mdomnick,

Your statement about Stereophile is not true. John Atkinson took a lot of criticism from his readers for giving a less than a sterling review of the new Thiel CS 1.6. Michael Fremer, the one who actually reviewed the Halo JC 1, has criticized the Harron monoblock amplifiers as being "too tidy." He felt that their soundstage was too small for the price, or something like that. When Michael reviewed the Ayre V1, he gave a mixed review, stating at the end of the article that both solid state and tube lovers alike may not like the sound of the Ayre. The impression that he gave was that the amp was too much of a comprise and MAY not appeal to either amplifier camp. And when Michael reviewed the Aerial 8, he used a Mark Levinson 335 as a test amplifier. He felt that the amp was a little too sterile for his tastes. He concluded that it was an amp that appealed to the head more than the heart, or something to that effect. Finally, Michael noted that when he reviewed the $32,000 Midi-Grand Kharma 1.0 loudspeaker, he felt that the bass was not tight and fast enough for his room and that the loudspeaker was not the last word in dynamics, despite the big soundstage it created.

So you can see that Stereophile, and especially Michael Fremer, do not give a rubber-stamp rave review with everything they test. Thus, the Halo JC 1 could very well be an amplifier worth listening to.

I certainly didn't mean to suggest the Halo was a bad amp, as I have never heard it for myself. It seems to me with all the reviews I have read lately, I finish the article by hearing the reviewer say if I didn't already own "this," I would concider "that" in my line up of gear to demo. There always seems to be some qualifying remark. I know everything works differently with different gear, but there also is gear out there that is just plain bad and it seems reviewers are afraid to say it.

My favorite is, "In conclusion after my glowing review, at x dollars, the jimmy-who component pales in comparison to my personal reference fling-flong component at 7x dollars or even the whoopdee-doo component at 3x dollars...but still it is really, really, really, really good. You should go buy one (although I wouldn't)"