Bryston 7B SST vs. Parasound Halo JC 1 shootout...

Haven't sold any to Maggie owners yet.....Bulk of them have gone to Sound Lab owners with a sprinkling of Wisdom Audio, Vandersteens and Rockports....Saw Wayne at the CES and he was running Eggleston speakers and a Thor preamp....

The Good Guys decided not to carry the JC-1 due to pricing......This is the reason Essential Audio is now a dealer as is Audio Kinesis in New Orleans (Duke Lejeune) as this is the very first of the high end products from Halo which will be sold by small high end dealers that do more than sell boxes....The unit is already a commercial success as they ordered another hundred of them which will be built this month........I did the best I could with the sound of the unit and expect others will like it as well....It is the best we could do in a very high powered amplifier that was to be machine made......The pricing is about 1/3 what they would cost if built by hand here due to automated manufacture in Taiwan........Glad you didn't mention the other sacred cows layed to waste Brian as this sort of thing is not for a message board when you have a commerical interest.....Fine for hobbyists, but not for dealers.....

Kan813, advise your friend not to waste his time coming by our CES room in 2004 as it will be pretty much the same uninspiring set-up....About the only thing we will do differently next year is get there earlier as the digital system and AC filter take a couple days to behave and the speakers don't image at all until they have been plugged in for two to three days.....I was pleased with the sound from Friday night through the remainder of the show and it inspired me enough to want to do it again with Sound Lab.....No they don't have the "pop" of the Rockports, but they are cleaner with better low level detail and are extremely coherent.....

Sorry Artar but my standards are much higher than yours. However; Wayne Donnelly has the VTL750s and will be comparing them to the JC-1s in a review on enjoythemusic.com in the near future.....You are incorrect as Mr. Curl does work for Parasound and ANY changes in parts or design is discussed along with samples provided for testing before they are approved for production......Thompson and I are paid hourly as consultants now that the JC-1s are in production.....The design is frozen until approved by all is my point.....

The JC-1 is the best we can do in a high powered amplifier that is machine made....It is a honey of an amplifier and bears little resemblance to anything Parasound has ever done in terms of design or parts quality....I expect it will be able to keep up with anything on the market regardless of technology employed....

Artar 1, you seem to find the strangest things to complain about You complain that the Good Guys won't carry it, but they are like buying from Sears anyway :) Parasound is setting up high end dealers and I'm sure they will have someone in your area shortly. Check with Parasound at richard@parasound.com for a dealer in your area.....I don't think you caught my post as the unit is already successful and another hundred will be completed this month.

Expensive does not equate to good sound....That 4.5MM system is an obvious case of money falling into the wrong hands :)

Rather than continue this pissing match and your thoughts on the sound of the JC-1 without hearing it I suggest you reread my post and contact the head of Parasound, Richard Schram, for the closest dealer in your area who can lend you some amps for a listen...

Artar 1, time will tell if the JC-1 is a huge commercial success, but I suspect it will do fine as it is a very powerful nice sounding amp.....Our intention was to build the best amp we could and have it built overseas in an automated factory at a price that is astoundingly low considering the quality of parts and assembly.....It would have been an easier sell if the unit was made here by hand and cost 18K or so? I don't think so and those that have traded in much more expensive amps have had not only better sound, but money left over after the purchase....These are good things that precision machine manufacturing can bring to the table.....

Nealhood, we didn't have any trouble other than setting the gain and keeping the CMRR high at the same time as I recall...Doing this from memory as I wasn't directly involved in the acrobatics in this iterative values setting....I recall that folks got all caught up in CMRR and got it right and missed the THX spec by enough that resistor values had to be changed a touch....Now CE was tougher as the amp draws so much at turn-on....A change in surgisters (bypassed by relay after turn-on surge) and an LC filter in the IEC were necessary......

Janice Raczynski of Control Alt Design, Ltd in Arlington Heights, Illinois designed the front panels for the Halo line......

Go to www.controlalt.com and take a look.....