Parasound A21/P5 vs. Halo Integrated?

[dmac]

I am considering purchasing a new amp to upgrade from my Yamaha RXV667 and am looking at the Parasound halo a21/p5 combo or the Halo integrated 2.1. I have Polk Audio SDA1Cs right now and they do require a fair amount of power to be at their best. Ialso will likely upgrade speakers in the near future to another large floorstander.

I primarily listen to vinyl and some CDs. All kinds of music.

I was wondering if anyone has compared these two Parasound options. Does the Integrated have enough power? Sound quality comparisions etc...

Thanks,

Dmac

 

[slippers-on]

I've heard the A21. But not the Integrated 2.1 which has a ESS Sabre32 Reference DAC with USB, Optical and Coax inputs and the USB input decodes Native DSD, DoP and PCM up to 384kHz/32-bit. You'd do good to get that for the DSD as well as the great sound of John Curls products. The Halo products are not a bad product at all and sound really great. Nice neutral sound.

 

[fredcohiba]

I really like my HINT. Have had it 10 days now. No complaints at all. It's fun to listen to.

 

[thymanst]

I had a p5 and now have a halo integrated - I find the integrateds dac to be a little more detailed. It is a good mate with GE Triton one speakers - very good at low volume levels and plays cleanly at louder levels ( I don't crank volume really loud though) the integrated has plenty of power for the tritons, especial since the woofers are powered. This is a combo that sounds wonderful - soundstage huge, adjustable bass for placement , very good highs. Very balanced sound from top to bottom. I haven't run woofers off the integrated .1 yet - the goldenears crossover seems very good.

 

[AvFan]

I've had several integrated amps and but now prefer separate preamp and amp for greater flexibility plus I think it is better to separate what is handling a bunch of small signals and the braun that makes them listenable. To size the amp (separate or integrated) there are a few factors including speaker sensitivity, seating distance, your typical listening volume and lastly the amount of headroom you want. To address these Crown Amps has a calculator that will help. http://www.crownaudio.com/en/tools/calculators. Headroom is how the amp handles dynamic changes in the volume of the music and there is a range of opinions on how much to have. I participated in an interesting discussion ( http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/in...details-and-sound.744092/page-2#post-10092108) along these lines beginning at post #34. My conclusion was a Parasound A-23 was plenty for my setup and didn't warrant the significant jump in cost to get the additional power of the A-21. Parasound gear gets a lot of positive reviews and while lots of them are sold not too many show up in the used market which is a good sign. I am very happy with my A-23. The P5 is a sort of a Swiss Army knife of preamps and it has received really positive reviews. The only downside I can see is if you are not happy with DAC or Phono section at some point you may gravitate to separates for those functions and idle them in the P5. Regardless, an A-21 and P5 would make a great foundation for just about any system, room size, typical listening volume and speakers.