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Parasound HCA-3500, Am I Crazy?

Hello to all,
I recently borrowed a friends Parasound HCA-3500 power amp just for the heck of it. [I was always curious how this amp sounded].
I unhooked my Parasound Halo JC-1's and hooked up the Parasound HCA-3500 in its place.
Much to my shock, there were some things that the 3500 seemed to do better than the JC-1's in my system:
The HCA-3500 actually sounded more transparent, open, and more extended on top than the JC-1's! This was especially true at lower volume levels.
The HCA-3500 also seemed to have a deeper soundstage, and a blacker background.
The JC-1's seemed superior in most other regards, however.
The JC-1's sounded smoother, cleaner, had slightly more body, more detail, and better bass control than the 3500.
The 3500 did sound a touch etched and slightly grainy, but it sure sounded damn clear, open, and transparent!
How could this be?
Anyone else out there experienced this?
Break-in is not an issue. My JC-1's have close to 1,800 hours on them.
I am just puzzled folks, thats all.
audio_girl
audio_girl
russ_l
95 posts
 
Drhst20- Uh, is there an answer in your response to Audio girl?
mt10425
1,138 posts
 
Russ- He can't answer right now, drooling shorts out the keyboard.
gandme
212 posts
 
Has anyone had the chance to compare the JC-1 vs HCA-3500
after Steve (Empircal Audio) has done mods to both?
warnerwh
539 posts
 
I've not compared the two but am on my second HCA 3500 after trying a Marsh A400s in between. On my VMPS Rm 40's which are extremely transparent I find the 3500 performs excellently from the bottom to the top. This in contrast to the Marsh A400s which is also a good amp and I think it was REG of Absolute Sound who claimed it to be as good as anything upto 20k. The Marsh did have some good qualities but overall I went back to the 3500. It seems to do everything right and with ease. My pre is an ARC LS 16. My room is dedicated LEDE with bass traps. If there's any serious shortcomings it doesn't get in the way of the music.
plato
1,543 posts
 
Audio_girl,

Excuse me, but since I don't know you or your experience level, I have to ask:

Did you use all the same power cords, interconnects, and speaker cables when you performed your evaluation? Or, did you try different things to try to optimize the performance of each amp? Were they plugged into the same AC line? Through an AC conditioner or not? Did they use the same mechanical-coupling methods or vibration control? Heck, I've heard some gear sound appreciably different just by setting the component on a different surface or by using different footers.

On the surface, one would think that performing the evaluation keeping everything exactly the same would be the fairest possible methodology. In my experience I have found that this is not always to be taken for granted.

These days, when I make such comparisons, I try to optimize the installation for each amp (or other component) so that each piece will sound as good as I can possibly tweak it to sound. What works best for Amp A may put amp B at a disadvantage (and vice-versa). So what, on the surface, would appear to be an impartial evaluation or observation, may be (unintentionally) slanted due to factors that simply may not have been considered. Your comments about the 3500 sounding "grainy" or "etched" might be right on the money -- but they could also be telling you that the 3500 does not like the same cabling or footers (or whatever) that work well for the JC-1's.

If you haven't had the amp to play with and tweak over a period of time then you probably have not heard it at its best. Brief shootouts can be misleading. Extended evaluations over time are more reliable indicators.

I don't own either amp you're speaking of, so I have no stake in the outcome one way or the other. But I do like to see things done fairly and competently. For sure, there are a lot of variables to consider.

It's just food for thought...
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