Is the Hegel H-20 better than the Parasound A-21?

Isanchez..thanks for the very informative historical background on Aragon and Acurus. I remember when they were part of Mondial and I assume their amps have improved sonically since then. The reviews back in the 90's were a mixed bag. The main criticism at the time was their amps had a cold, hard upper treble that was overbearing and the amps lacked warmth.

Audiooracle..the interior pictures of the 8008 were taken within the past year on Google images. You can tell they are current since the faceplate is current compared to the previous fronts which have gone through some changes and also they have changed out the binding posts which look like good quality WBT's. The previous posts were not that impressive. Have you compared the current 8008 to models from 10 years ago, and does the current 8008 have a more refined, smoother sound, and has Aragon corrected the treble region that was constantly criticized years ago? I'm curious why Aragon makes only two products which are amps and will they go back to making Pre-amps?

The new amps are not even in the same ballpark as the old, I used to sell the originals and they were good not great.

I sell some incredible amplifiers from Chord, BAT, Bryston, and Hegel, and the new Aragon 8008 sounds like a way more expensive amplifier than it has the right to be, and it is a best buy in its price range.

AudioZen, other than I could not get a very clear picture of where the instruments were placed in the soundstage (like I get in my system), I didn't detect any of the symptoms you described. I would say the sound had some warmth, although it was most likely due to the tube preamp the 8008 was paired with. The sound was as crystal clear as the much more expensive ML/Krell room.

The only thing that raised a flag is this statement from the 8008 manual:

2. Using higher-efficiency loudspeakers (87dB/W/m or greater) will reduce the average amount of amplifier power consumed to produce a target listening loud-ness. This effectively helps reserve greater peak amplifier power when loud musical transient passages are reproduced.

This value seems to be at the threshold level of Magnepan speakers (86dB/500Hz /2.83v) and other low sensitivity speakers. So, I wonder if the amp is stable below 4ohms.

Audiooracle..Had a long conversation today with Rick, co-owner of Indy Audio Labs, who provided further history on the new Aragon 8008 amp that was released last August. He is aware of the earlier amps that did not sound that good that were designed by Mike Kusiak, head designer who took over in the 90's. The first Aragon Pre-Amp and the their first amp, the 4004 was designed by Dan D'agostino. Mike designed the 4004 MKII. The current 8008 is designed by Indy engineers and Kusiak was not involved in the design and is not employed by Indy. The very high quality Cornell Dubilier capacitors are only made for Aragon. Indy Audio Labs purchased Aragon in 2009. It appears that the new 8008 can be added to the great performance value list such as Parasound, Hegel and others.