Has anyone heard the new Parasound Halo preamp?

I've had the P3 for about a month now and have been very happy with the sound. My goal was to get a preamp with a remote and phono stage for under $1000. I look at a lot of used stuff here but most did not have the remote capabilites. I auditioned the NAD and Myryad (although the myryad did not have the phono) and this easily sounded the best. The P3 replaced a denon 3300 being used as a pre-amp feeding a pair of Outlaw m-200 monoblocks and Paradigm Studio 20's. The nice part of the P3 is that is has 2 direct connects that bypass the tone circuitry. I found these much cleaner than the other connections for the CD. Listening to the into of Roger Waters, Amused to death, the background dialog went from slightly above/left of the front left speaker to behind my left ear. I was a happy camper.

I had the pleasure of working with and demoing the P3 for some time. Before leaving my employer I picked one up along with the A23 amp. I have them powering my Energy Veritas 2.4 towers and couldn't be more happy with how gorgeous the system sounds. As a matter of fact I'm thinking about picking up another so that I can bridge them and put one on each speaker. I currently work with much higher end equipment on a daily basis for my employer but still stand behind the entire HALO series. Proabably THE BEST deal out there for the money. You could go as far as to say it's "underpriced"
Geoff

I have the P3 / A23 combo driving Paradigm Studio 100 v2's.

The P3's sound is excellent but there's a few 'gotchas'. It has unbalanced (RCA ) and balanced (XLR) outputs. If you can use the balanced output, as with the A23, it seems to deliver more bass. Or perhaps the output is just a bit higher. It sounds better with balanced to me.

Also the tape "monitor" is wierd. If you have a deck hooked up and it is in 'record' mode don't you dare switch the input of the P3 to TAPE! It completes a feedback loop which will send your system howling bloody murder! That loop doesn't happen on other preamps I've had. Wierd.

The last gotcha is the headphone jack. For some completely unexplained reason Parasound put a 1/8" inch jack on there instead of 1/4" inch. So you now have to use an adapter for 99% of the "real" headphones made.

If the headphone jack don't matter, if the tape monitor thing don't matter, and if you can use the XLR outputs ( all true for me ) .. then yes it is a great sounding preamp ( that is "no sounding" ) at a good price.

Yes. The new Halo gear is incredible!

I agree- replaced my B&K Ref Pre and 5125 with Halo C2/A51... did it in steps. The switch in Pre/pro was HUGE... the C2 BLOWS AWAY the B&K.. in fact, I think it is AS GOOD as the arcam.. and cheaper.

The A51 was another MUST HAVE- you are right..nothing in SS out there that comes close- this stuff is as good as gold... for the price they ask.. BETTER