Parasound amps appreciation thread

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by pdxway, May 31, 2019.

  1. MikeJedi

    MikeJedi Forum Resident

    Location:
    Las Vegas
    The DL11 puts out closer to 2.3. 41 should still work good.
     
  2. terzinator

    terzinator boots lost in transit

    I think the HINT6's phono stage is perfectly fine, but I'm a doofus who prefers the bother and expense and tinker-ability of an external phono preamp. :rolleyes:
     
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  3. bever70

    bever70 Let No-one Live Rent Free in Your Head!

    Location:
    Belgium
    Sure, 41db will work but I find it sounds a lot better using 50db of gain (MM setting of course).
    If using MC with dl110, my preference was 2000ohm.
     
  4. EHUDson

    EHUDson Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago, IL, USA
    Anyone with a Hint 6 or P6 able to connect to Roon through a Windows 10 PC with ASIO instead of WASAPI? I have looked everywhere. No one has resolved this issue so far. I heard from Roon, Native DSD only plays on ASIO. I tried installing Parasound's Driver from their support page. It didn't end up working at all. All I can connect through is WASAPI. Is that what everyone else is connecting through?
     
  5. jcn3

    jcn3 Forum Resident

    Location:
    NH
    roon definitely plays native dsd with wasapi on windows -- i'd be interested to see the post from roon on this. is there any other reason you're trying to use asio? maybe trying dsd256 or higher?

    note: i wasn't using any upsampling -- just a dsd64 file.
     
    Last edited: May 3, 2021
  6. EHUDson

    EHUDson Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago, IL, USA
    I am only playing dsd64 files. I can play dsd64 fine in Roon if the Playback strategy is set to either "DSD over PCM v1.0 (DoP)" or "Initial dCS method". It should also give the option for "Native". I contacted Phil at Parasound Support. He is looking into it. I will report back my findings.
     
  7. David A Villareale

    David A Villareale Active Member

    Location:
    Rochester Ny
    My plan is to use a bluesound node2i, how does the Sabre dac do with a MQA sound ?

    i have seen a lot of debate on MQA, i like it....
     
  8. jarrod2750

    jarrod2750 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Centereach, NY
    I have the P6 and I am using a Raspberry pi4 as a Ropieee Roon endpoint and I’m pretty sure it is via ASIO. Connection is via USB
     
  9. okc_craft

    okc_craft It All Matters

    Location:
    Okc
    Upgraded my pair of 2125 v2 with an older A21 I purchased from another member of the forum. This thing is a beast and delivers on all fronts. Just for kicks I’ll leave this nude shot of the amp here.
    [​IMG]
     
    33na3rd, Rick58, molinari and 8 others like this.
  10. dougotte

    dougotte Petty, Annoying Dilettante

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    I use the A23+ with a Vincent SA-T7 preamp. Sometime last year, I decided to reduce the output gain on the A23+, thinking this would allow the characteristics of the Vincent to flow through. Seems silly, but I'm way past being embarrassed at my lack of knowledge and ignorant assumptions.

    For the past few months, a problem has been bothering me more and more. When playing content with a wide dynamic range (ex. symphonies by Mahler, Shostakovich, etc.), I find the range is too great. I'm riding the volume buttons, fearful that a sfzorando with walloping bass drum will shake the house, while a gentle ppp Largo is nearly silent.

    Today, I raised the A23+ gain back to max, and it does seem to have helped the problem. I want to listen more, though. Is it possible that reducing the gain on the A23+ increased the dynamic range? Or, is it all in my imagination? Thanks.
     
    bever70 likes this.
  11. bever70

    bever70 Let No-one Live Rent Free in Your Head!

    Location:
    Belgium
    Well, I also have experienced with dialing the gain back on my A21, because when I use XLR between DAC and P5 preamp and XLR between P5 preamp and A21, I could hardly turn the dial to 9 on my preamp. So I did some 'gainstaging' dialing the gain back on the A21 and I used 13 o clock on my preamp dial as 'just loud enough'.
    Can't say if it actually did something for dynamics. Now I am back to full gain as I use RCA again between preamp and amp.
     
  12. avanti1960

    avanti1960 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago metro, USA
    Good question- do whatever sounds best to you- most people prefer a wide dynamic range. Reducing the gain on the amp might be optimizing the dynamic range by making the response more linear and appropriate for the dynamics in the recording. Increasing the gain can compress the range because lower level signals are raised and there is not enough overall power available to properly reproduce the higher level signals.
    On my a21 I run the gain at mid level because it sounds best this way- the cleanest, most balanced and linear sound. If the gain is higher things sound slightly rougher around the edges, too much in your face sound and the feeling like you do not want to turn the volume up.
    It does depend on your system overall gain from source through preamp. Adjust to what sounds best. Nothing wrong with dynamics- that is how a symphony sounds.
     
    bever70 likes this.
  13. jmadad

    jmadad Forum Resident

    Location:
    NJ
    I just got an A21+ amp. My first foray into higher end equipment! I'm awaiting a Schiit Freya+ preamp, but lord knows when that will be ready to ship with their delays.

    Anyway, I couldn't wait, so I connected my Denon CD player right to the A21+. I know it's not ideal, but it still sounds so much better than anything I've had before! I'll be following this thread, and I just wanted to thank everyone for the reviews and commentary - I'm thrilled to have made this purchase.
     
  14. dougotte

    dougotte Petty, Annoying Dilettante

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    Thank you both for your responses. See below for my individual responses.
    The Parasound manuals do specify that XLR inputs have a 6 dB higher input than RCA. I'd been using XLR for years between my P5 and A23. When I upgraded to A23+, it sounded too forward and harsh. So, I switched to RCA and it was much better.

    Everything you wrote makes sense. Thanks for your thoughts. I appreciate the dynamic range in classical music, but in this case, it was too much. I was really jumping at the loudest fortissimi, and was literally leaning forward to try to hear everything in some pianissimo passages. It was as if the music was receding into the ether. I don't recall it being an issue prior to my reducing the A23+ output gain.

    I think the dynamic range sounds better now, but this is after only about two hours of listening. I have to agree with you that the full gain from the A23+ makes the sound more forward and with clearer details. Some brass flourishes do sound a bit "rougher around the edges..." Time will tell if I think it's better overall or not!

    PS I didn't mention that, around the same time, I added 10 dB attenuators between the Vincent and the A23+ because the Vincent has such a hot output gain. Maybe that affected the dynamics as well, but I haven't removed the attentuators yet.
     
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  15. Rick58

    Rick58 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Eagle, ID, USA
    Maybe I’m at near optimal gain with my A 21, I dialed it back from max to better match my 300B tube amps, the pots are around 2 o’clock. I do drive the A 21 with the balanced outputs of my P 7, and the 300B amps with the unbalanced outputs.

    Both sound excellent!
     
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  16. jmadad

    jmadad Forum Resident

    Location:
    NJ
    do you guys leave the amps powered on 24/7?
     
  17. bever70

    bever70 Let No-one Live Rent Free in Your Head!

    Location:
    Belgium
    Not in the summer, it gets too hot in our living room during really warm days so I can really do without the extra heat the a21 generates. In winter sometimes I leave it on for a week and sometimes for a weekend, depends...not really noticed a difference between a week on or just a few hours on.
     
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  18. avanti1960

    avanti1960 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago metro, USA
    No. Just standby.
    I have a few solid state amplifiers that are over 30 years old, always turned them off when finished listening to them. Not sure if they would be in the same condition if I had left them on continuously for all those years. At least I know they are in excellent condition now by turning them off, so that is what I will keep doing.
     
  19. jmadad

    jmadad Forum Resident

    Location:
    NJ
    thank you both!
     
  20. EHUDson

    EHUDson Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago, IL, USA
    I reported in previous posts that I was burning in the A21+ amp and the Parasound P6 Preamp. Well I am done with my sessions and I have to report the following conclusion. These findings are also based using Revel F206 speakers and a Benchmark Dac2 HGC and P6. I needed 600+ hours of burning on the A21+ before the amp didn't change in sound. It was cycling through periods of brightness to periods of neutral tonality. Each cycle getting longer until the overall tone is one that I was looking for. I find it to be muscular in its low end and detailed yet smooth in the highs. It has a great sound stage and is quite fast as well. I never thought it was capable of this tone in the first 400hrs of playback. Many days I thought it was too lean for my liking. Only to find after 600 hrs it woud beef up and sound wonderful paired with the rest of my setup. I came from using the Benchmark AHB2, which was much leaner in tone around the mids and especially the highs.

    I also burned in the P6 Preamp for 260 hours then I did a shoot out between the P6 and the Benchmark Dac2. With my F206 speakers I slightly preferred the Dac2 over the P6. This was only for the tone being warmer on the Dac2. The P6 completely impressed me with the quality of its dac sounding almost if not equal to that of the Benchmark. I did a test where I played the same music outputting from 2 usb cables from my computer going into each dac. The only disadvantage for the Dac2 was to output it via interconnects into the P6. The sounds seamed equally detailed with equal sound staging. and almost equal in tonality too. The difference in tonality could be the Morrow MA4 cable I used. The similarities occurred track after track. I do want to report no one from Parasound ever responded to my question about playback via asio. Although I didn't hear a difference with the Dac2 playing back in ASIO vs the P6 playing back in Wasapi through Roon. So I wouldn't think that really matters in the long run.
     
  21. Rick58

    Rick58 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Eagle, ID, USA
    Maybe no one there knows? They should have responded anyway of course. They’re usually very responsive.
     
  22. EHUDson

    EHUDson Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago, IL, USA
    Yeah, I spoke with Phil Jackson from Parasound on the phone. He said he would defer me to their Windows IT person but I never heard back. It's ok. The Wasapi setting in Roon sounded great.
     
    Rick58 likes this.
  23. avanti1960

    avanti1960 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago metro, USA
    ever compared to the a21+? really like the plus but missing world class dynamics.
     
  24. TheVinylAddict

    TheVinylAddict Look what I found

    Location:
    AZ
    Pretty much the same motivation here, and what drove me to hit the power button all these years.
     
  25. dougotte

    dougotte Petty, Annoying Dilettante

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    Update on my A23+ gain: After moving the gain from 50% to full, I reduced it again to about the 9 o'clock position. This reduces the slight glare, yet doesn't make the dynamics too distant. I've had it like this for about a month now, and like it.

    And, there seem to be only a few recordings that exhibited the "vanishing" pianissimo effect. I noticed it most on SACD box sets of Mahler (SFF) and Shostakovich. These seem to be recorded with a very wide dynamic range. I have many discs (classical and other) that don't pose a problem. I have noticed it on a few things, such as King Crimson, Klaus Schulze, etc. but not to a great degree.
     

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