Anyone try and compare the Halcro SSP 100 or 80?

"I have heard good and bad things about these Halcro SSP and my dealer really recommends it over the other lines he carries like Meridian, Lexicon and Theta."

Meridian is the best processor on the market, your dealer like most Meridian dealers probably does not understand how to take advantage of of all the Meridian's power. A very unfortunate but common reality. An example of its power, is I can mimic other processors with the Meridian and although I haven't tried, I'm sure the Halcro is not the exception.

The Lexicon does not sound as good (unfortunately) but from a setup/software stand point maybe the only processor on the market competitive with the Meridian. Personally if you took the Halcro and theta hardware and add all the Lexicon's software, that would be an awesome processor!

But that's not in the card right now. :(

The theta is primitive and really just not a very good processor, they do not get "it" and continue to leave out critical adjustment capabilities.

The Halcro is an Anthem on steroids (that for those who know anything about surround sound is a huge complement), it sound good from a 2 channel perspective but it is still very primitive versus the lexicon and meridian

I would rank the prepros like the

Meridian
Halcro/Lexicon

theta.

PS: Feel free to email me for any Meridian setup tricks, stuff i do is over the head of the Hitchhikers board, most of the members there use about 60% of the machines potential. I would gladly share what I know if you care to ask.

Pramod1969,

thank you very much for the detailed analysis. I heard the same comments from my dealer in respects to music and movies. I may have to take him up on the home trial just to satisfy my curiosity.

D_edwards,

I am definately going to take you up on your offer to e-mail you about set-up tricks.
I really love the Meridian G68 for music but feel something is missing for movies. I think it is lacking the punchiness and bass slam for movies that made the Meridian 561 so much fun. The 561 was not even close when it comes to music but it's flaws made movies a lot more exciting. I even prefered the 561 to the 568 when it came to movies.

The Perfect Vision echoed my dealers comments on the Halcro about music and movies and the review came out a few months after (he did leave out the ergonimic quirks though)

The qualities that most of us look for in music does not always match what we like for movies and vice versa. I suppose that is why a lot of people still have a seperate music and movie system like I use to have.

I now must cope with one system that does both equally well.......sigh. Hopefully either D_edwards gives me the magic solution for the Meridian or the Halcro fits the bill.

Thanks all for the comments.

Few more updates on my Halcro SSP100 after few weeks of critical listening:
1. It does offer bass management with ability to choose direct vs. DSP for the ONLY FOR BALANCED INPUTS. So if anyone out there fortunate enough to own discontinued EAD theater master DVD audio player with balanced outputs they could really use this processor for the best possible sound. Ofcourse, you could always use RCA to XLR adapters to use existing 5.1 outputs from usual DVDA/SACD players which may help with bass management issues.
2. I am currently using resolution audio CD55 via stereo balanced outputs to SSP100. While the CD 55 sound is extremely transparent and clear, it lacks the bass response I love in music CD's when I set up SSP 100 in bypass mode. When I use the SSP 100's DSP mode for balanced inputs, it dramatically changes the bass dynamics without affecting the wonderful sound generated by CD 55 and it quickly became my default mode for all my cd listening. CD 55's bass output is surprisingly weak since I have to increase the output of my Velodyne DD-18 by 2 times to get the same punch I get from my $130 Sony CD changer via optical output. But sonically CD 55 is superior to Marantz SA-1 & Quad CDP-2, I recently auditioned in my house and I can't wait to see if there is any noticeable improvement with their new Opus 16. While the CD 55 can't come close to the construction quality of the 50lb beatiful Marantz SA-1, again sound is light years ahead and is well worth it.
3. SSP 100 also has extreme processing power that it can be used for a movie theater. Compared to Lexicon MC 12 which gives you a maximum front speaker distance of 30 feet from seating position, SSP 100 gives you up to 63 feet. Even with test tone speaker output levels Lexicon maxes out at 12db and SSp 100 goes upto 15db, but the output generated by lexicon at 12 db is surprisingly achieved by SSP 100 at only 4-6db. None of these observations are really important to most home theater set ups but I just wanted to mention in case some one has a very long room with specific needs.
I will post again if anything else changes!
thanks
pramod

I have another shocking discovery I wanted to share with my friends in audiogon. Few days ago I mentioned the wonderful sound I heard with CD playback via balanced and RCA inputs from various high end Cd players like CD-55, Marantz SA-1, Quad CDP-2. I was playing around with the digital inputs of SSp-100 to evaluate the performance of unit's own DAC and I was shocked to see that music playing from my $130 Sony SCS-CE595 CD/SACD player via optical output sounded identical to the other high end CD players I mentioned earlier. While the SSP 100's digital processing is the best I have heard to date for music and DVD playback, this also rises a possibility that their balanced inputs are not doing a good job even in bypass mode, since the bass sounds extremely weak with CD playback. I never had the chance to use balanced inputs for CD use when I owned MC-12 since it doesn't offer them. If anyone is planning to purchase SSP-100, I advise them to make use of its digital inputs for music playback and invest in a CD/ DVD transport rather than a player with balanced outputs. I am going to sell my CD-55 to buy a transport myself. I also urge every one to audition Sony SCS-CE595 CD/SACD player before wasting money on other expensive CD players. I am going to compare all my future transports head to head with this cheap and wonderful player and keep you posted.

pramod

Pramod,

I was speaking with Smitty at XLO Cables yesterday and we were discussing Balanced cables. He said that machines made in the US vs machines made to european specs have the two pins in the XLR reversed.

According to him if you connect via XLR a U.S. made product to a european made product (ie Halcro) your units will be out of phase. He said that they often make custom XLR cables to use between US and european products.

Do you think that this might have had something to do with the balanced inputs sounding worse?