Parasound Halo JC-1 -VS- Bryston 7B-ST?

Downunder, at 4-500 hours the JC-1s will sound as you described...at about 1000 hours things dramatically improve, becoming quite lively and involving, at 1200 hours even more so.

By the way, I looked at your system. Have you checked which is the left speaker and which is right? Judging by the photo captions you have them reversed. Violins should be on your left :)

I just want to concur with Essentialaudio that at 500 hours the JC1-1's are quite boring. I had been "piece mealing" the break-in time and keeping track of the hours. I knew about the long break-in time, but was becoming impatient. So I wrote to Crump and told him of my concerns and he talked me into leaving these bad boys powered-up 24/7 with signal. I didn't want to do it, but I promised myself that I wouldn't prematurely cut my loses and sell these amps until they were fully broken-in. Also. I wasn't looking forward to the power bill, but at least it wasn't summer (Arizona) and it wasn't that bad after all. My amps now have well over 2000 hours and they continue to blow my mind. And they took another quantum leap forward after I put aftermarket pc's on them. This may seem like an extreme and an exorbitant amount of time to break in a pair of amps, and perhaps it is. But the returns are well worth it. But I could totally understand someone taking a pass on JC1's for this reason. Also, I'm convinced that many people prematurely sell these amps, unsatisfied with their sound, prior to being fully broken-in. I posted to this thread because I also had 7b-sst mono's on my shortlist of amps at the time. I couldn't audition either amp, so I did a lot of research and homework. Which included talking to owners of both amps and speaking to people in the industry. Also one of the things that really bugged me about the sst's were that they didn't have dual binding posts, something I just can't understand in today's market. So, in the end, I ordered a brand new pair of JC1's and have never looked back (well, at least after the break-in:).

Brian. thanks for noticing my typo :). I will blame Elvis! Yes speaker is now left and right is right.

Unfortunately the dealer and I could not wait the 1200 hours for the JC's to sound good. In fact they rate the SIM amps a lot more than the parasounds. Way too much of a risk down in Sydney where re-sale is more difficult. That is why I added the disclaimer.

I am more than happy with the cj prem350 and I got it cheaper than the JC-1's which was a bonus. One advantage of buying from the distributor rather than distributor / dealer network

I dont know about the ST's, but the SST's are solid performers. That would be a tough choice.

For about the same price you could try a Pass Labs X250.5. It's a fantastic amp and could very well cure the "curiosities." Well, at least for a while anyway.

I agree. A friend of mine has had the JC-1's for a year and had a problem with one of the monoblocks. Parasound refused to repair it under warranty and call him an idiot during a phone call with a technician. Even Richard Schram, the president of the company, was belligerent. You won't have these problems with Bryston. I own the 4Bsst's.