New Parasound Halo JC1+ monoblocks just released!!!

I bought a JC-5 a few months ago after auditioning the JC-1. I found the two amps to have a very similar sonic signature, but the JC-5 was slightly cleaner sounding.

Wondering if you asked the shop demo'er if the JC1's were in high or low bias mode, as I found high bias was much sweeter and transparent in the upper-mid/highs on the Wilson Alexia's, yet still retained the same hammer like impact and definition in the bass as low bias mode did.

Cheers George

w1000i
JC1+ is high in distortion for the price.

You need to do more research, the best sounding amp around have very little feedback.
Designers like John Curl, Nelson Pass, Dan D’agostino, Gryphon ect ect ect use as little negative feedback as they can, sometimes even only using just local feedback instead of global.
This little feedback always sounds better if the design is a solid design to start with, instead of having feedback higher just so the amp can be cleaned up and can then get better advertised THD figures and lower output impedances.

Cheers George

Without sharing the other amplifiers included in this evaluation

I’ve given one of the other amps, as the Gryphon.

No need to belittle the ones that were easily beaten by giving their names just because they couldn’t match it against the JC1’s into the Wilson Alexia’s one of the hardest speakers to drive, which demand large amounts of current without an amp becoming stressed.

These amps that were beaten, in their own right, and kept within their driving ability limits are all good amps, (as many members here own them) just not as good as the JC1’s into the Alexia’s

Cheers George

Whatever buddy.
John Curl’s best amp to date was the original Parasound Halo JC1 monos, till these even beefier Halo JC1+ monos came along.
You say they "sound ok" and are "a lot of bang for buck" quite a massive understated that I and the others believe that were there.
The JC1’s were the only thing to to drive and make the Wilson Alexia’s sing beside the Gryphon Antillion, without hearing them I'd dare say the new JC1+'s could equal or maybe better the Gryphon Antillion

My mission isn’t to deceive

Neither is mine mate, I told it how it was heard by 6 very experienced listeners.

BTW this isn’t the first time you’ve been negative or put **** on Parasound products, seems in your posting history you have a thing against Parasound components, amps, pre’s and digital, yet you keep buying them, so you say.

I’m not a shill for anything

get a grip, read my post above yours, before going off half cocked, I apologized to you. I got you wrong with "ricevs" who gets tweak1 to shill his Class-D’s.

And sorry in Australia when something is "unanimously considered superior" heard between 6 audio reviewers/audio manufacturers in an a/b, we usually use terms like "it blew it away".

Well one could always buy a pair of the old ones used, they get around $3-$4k a pair depending on condition. And they’ll blow away just about anything as well, maybe but for a Gryphon Antillion Evo, which I heard an a/b with and were just a little better on the Wilson Alexia’s, and those Antillions are not budget priced at all.

I don’t own a Class D amplifier

Sorry, got you confused with ricevs and his class-d shill tweak1.

Cheers George

Each to his own. I know Class-D won’t touch the Gryphon’s on the Alexia’s and the JC1"s came close, there were 8 of us that heard it.

I find it a little bit strange that all of the PR is about the “technical improvements” and not about the sonic improvements

If they are correct technical improvements, then it improves the sonics as well.
Also Parasound aren't the sort of company to get into subjectively waxing lyrically about sound presentation. They leave that up to the reviewers, with their poetic BS about how things sound.
The real test for me will be if JA from Stereophile gets to put it on the test bench, for the real specs. 

Cheers George  

That’ll quickly come down just like the old ones did 30%, as Parasound like to do volume with their products.
Probably around $12-$15k once the dust settles.

Yikes, almost twice the retail. But it looks like they pulled out all the stops on this new design

Yep more of the stuff + some, that made the old one a great amp, this is one amp that’ll drive anything, and even better again.

BTW: Audiogon has kindly added to the threads 1st post, a link now to the Stereophlie review on these JC1+ beauties.
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/new-parasound-halo-jc1-monoblocks-just-released

Cheers George

but the circuit inside is not balanced which is where you get the most benefit out of a pure balanced design.

Sorry indran didn’t read your post right on this. Indeed the voltage amplification section of the JC1 ’s old or new may not be balanced I don’t know, as I have no circuit diagrams on them.
But you’ll find that if model of Pass Labs you mentioned has a true balanced voltage amplification stage (not just a tacked on balanced to se), the output stage is still single ended, like just about every other amp.

Just having a balance input with a single ended circuit inside, at least in theory, doesn’t have much benefit.

Yes because to listen to the balanced input on those, it’s just more components (sometimes an opamp) then they run into the single ended voltage amplification stage anyway, so your better off just listening to it.

And like I mentioned, it’s only a noise benefit, if there’s no noise it’s just extra components in the signal path that aren’t needed.

Cheers George

How much of this balanced design with common noise reduction functionality leads to sonic benefit?

Not much as I’ve found, only the noise "can" be a touch lower if the interconnects are unshielded or 10mts or more long.

In fact many pieces of equipment’s with balanced inputs and outputs are fake and sound worse, being just balanced opamps in front of or after the main single ended amplification circuitry.

And then 99% of amps are SE output anyway to the speakers the black "negative" speaker terminal is at earth potential so not being balanced output.

The new JC1+ monoblocks have got balanced inputs.
https://www.stereophile.com/content/parasound-halo-jc-1-monoblock-power-amplifier-0

Cheers George