Anthem AVM 30 vs. Parasound Halo C2

I was disgusted that the S&V review didn't discuss the Bryston SP 1.7 - I own one and feel it blows away the Parasound (and I ever was impressed by any of my friend's anthem stuff). Haven't heard the Krell, so I can't comment there... but having made the move from a 1055 myself, well, I don't think it can get much better than the Bryston - 20yr warranty, 2ch bypass, absolute purist piece (no video switching!!). Yeah there's obviously a lot better straight-up 2ch stuff out there, but this is the best sounding (for music) HT pre-pro I've ever encountered.

When dealing with high-end pre/pros, I think your decision should primarily come down to features that matter most to you.

I will have an AVM 30 in my system by the weekend. It's extensive bass management features were the most appealing to me compared to others. It's a feature that can truly improve the sound in almost any room, so that's what was important to me. We'll see how it turns out, but sorry I can't give more info or a direct comparison to the Halo.

I believe the Halo has some impressive self-calibration features, so that feature may be important to you.

The self calibration on the parasound was 'ok' at best, it did a HORRIBLE job with the sub - it wanted to think our DD15 was 45ft away and cranked the gain up by approx. 15db!!!! can you say oops? any person even without an SPL meter can manually enter speaker distances and guess gain better than most auto-setup things, it's for (no offense to anyone on the 'gon) folks with far more money than knowledge who are either too cheap to have someone configure it for them, or don't know well enough to set it up themselves.

The AVM20 is very competitive with the C2, and i'd expect the AVM30 to me better than the parasound.

Now that TAG McLaren is on the shelf, Bryston and Krell do figure in at this price point. Also with no Meridian peice at $5K anylonger it is wide open.

If you find yourself not making a decision until closer to the new year, the re-emergence of the TAG processors as Audiolab would be the only processor available that is significantly better than the three brands mentioned above.

So Anthem, Krell, Bryston...all winners, and if it matter I would buy the Anthem, although the Bryston has the best analog line stage, its over simplicity is still a bit of an achilles heal vs the Anthem and the Krell.

Plus Bryston with video switching gets into Meridian $$$ and then there is no comparison. Hope that helps.

Not to complicate things, but I have the Cary Cinema 6. It sounds fantastic with movies, but even more importantly to me is that 2 channel audio sounds better than any pre/pro I've heard.

One review (I think absolute sound) said it was the top sounding unit in its price range ($2500 list).