Lively, fast & open sounding integrated under 3k?


My speakers are 89db 2 way monitors with a very warm sound. Minimum impedance 3.5 ohm
large Room, low level listening 

My goals
no.1
excellent immediacy, speed & timing (dont recommend naim, very unnatural forced sound)

no2
forward soundstage (begins at the listening position and extends beyond the speakers)

No3.
Body without warmth

no4.
small in size if possible, but no class D, doubles into 4 ohms, Good at low volumes
new or used.

possible candidates from reading reviews

crayon cia-1
teac ai-2000
krell s300i
sugden a21se

zuio

Showing 6 responses by georgehifi

As I’ve said I’ve heard the Parasound, and they do not lack in HF to me. Maybe you listened to a dud one.

As these are comments made on the highs, from reviews.
The sound was anything but mellow with the Spendors’ tweeters firing at ear level, but joined the Spendor’s crispness to the Hint 6’s wholeness and refinement. It almost felt as if I were leaning into the Trondheim Soloists’ performance of Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings in C
.
Parasound never pushed the Quads’ ribbons into dangerous territory. Instead, music sounded brilliant and tangible, with a pulsating energy that made the strings of the Trondheim Soloists absolutely breathtaking. The sound was exhilarating. The Quads revealed the upper air of the Fitzgerald LP, with horns, hi-hat

Parasound was no exception. This combo was magical. The leading edges of voices, tenor saxophones, and drums reached out to caress my ears. A joyous sense of upper-treble air made all music exhilarating, transparent

There was something else wrong when you hear it.

Cheers George
Parasound stuff and the Halo have an incredibly clean midrange, they just do not have the high frequency extension that other amps do.
I think you may not like the sound of Class-A as that’s what the highs would be running as with the bias they have on them. As they sure are not rolled off as far as frequency bandwidth goes.

Parasound:
Frequency Response
2 Hz - 120 kHz, +0/-2 dB
20 Hz - 20 kHz, +0/-0.25 dB

About the same

Stereophile
was down by 3dB just below 100kHz!!
Cheers George
Yes, when JC1 is switched into high bias mode, it becomes very warm.
Not to me they become invisible like the speakers have left the room, and the music just washes over you in a 3D sound stage, that you swear you can get up and walk into. 
And I've built many, some very big ones over the last 30 years, even a self contained 120w-8ohm pure class-A water cooled one that could double down to 2ohm, that was two man lift, the size of a coffee table.  
Parasound Halo is voiced just slightly on the warm side of neutral
Not from what I’ve heard, that may apply to the Halo JC1’s etc, switched into high Class-A bias mode, but the standard a/b lower bias mode is definitely a cooler more etched sound.

Cheers George
zuio OP
MF sounds unnatural to me.

+1 They MF sound, are even more cooler, etched, than the JC1’s in low bias mode.
Never like them, definitely a MF house sound (very high gain used?), even their old little A1, A100 so called "Class-A’s" had the same sound, which btw were lucky to be measured to be even 10w of Class-A
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/zPkAAOSwvbZeiOjN/s-l1600.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/12/08/0a/12080aff826bd67d14bac6c74bd9b4b4.jpg

Cheers George
zuio OP
Lively, fast & open sounding integrated under 3k?

The Triangle signature Theta’s can go down to 4ohms, and to me sounded like they needed to be livened up  

A used John Curl designed Parasound Halo Hint integrated, you should be able to pickup for $3k or less, it’ll drive almost anything even has a ESS Sabre dac in it as well as a phono stage if you need it.
https://parasound.com/hint.php

$2.5K https://www.ebay.com/itm/Parasound-Halo-Integrated-Amplifier/324200768315?hash=item4b7bdf233b:g:RjkAAOSwTO9eSf3s

$1.4K!!! https://www.ebay.com/itm/Parasound-Halo-Integrated/124201839309?hash=item1ceb01aacd:g:hBgAAOSwSiVezmXD

Cheers George