Dac´s inside Halo?

[frasse74]

Hi all

I have been looking for some comparsion of the dac´s that parasound use
in their halo serie.
I know that they use motorola 56367-7 DSP engine and 24-bit/192-kilohertz digital-to-analog converters but i have not seen that someone has tested
the internal dac against a highgrade cd-player or a another preamp or a extenal
dac.
Why i´m asking this thats because i´m interested how the Halo serie is on the 2-channel front against other preamp and if it has been any changes since
the Halo serie came out...


Frasse74

[Peter Nielsen]

In my opinion the C2 is very strong on the 2-channel front. The internal DACs are IMHO very good, but if you think they're not good enough, then the C2 bypass feature will let you use the DAC in your CD-player...

The C2 is a very good prepro also for 2-channel listening if you ask me...

Peter

[frasse74]

Well i will test it soon i hope
and then i hear how it sounds,
i think that i will vistit a friend and
test it against his Tag mclaren
who was fully upgraded with dual shark processors
and see how the Parasound compare to that


frasse74

[Chris D]

I think that would be a great test, and I'm interested in your results. For me, I've found that the DAC's in my C1 have always given me superior performance to the DAC's in any other component I've used. (and subsequent transmission method to the C1) I've asked the Parasound fellas if there's any upgrades we can do to the Halo DAC's to make them even better, but it looks like they're already at their limits.

[goldear]

If you want another opinion on how the Halo compares to the Tag, I think it was Widescreen Review (and Perry Sun) who reviewed the Halo and compared it directly to a Tag they had on hand. If I recall he was very impressed with the Halo and gave it the edge over the Tag as a DAC. It may even be this same review that compared the Halo's analog bypass (via 8-channel input and balanced) with the McCormack MAP-1; While the MAP-1 had a slight edge over the Halo in this respect, it was very close with the conclusion being the Halo was a bargain considering its price and additional features you get.

As a note, it's been a while since I read these reviews and some of these comparisons may have also been done by DVD ETC. I do remember them though, as these comments were influential in helping me choose the Halo when it first came out. While I have sense moved on, the Halo was always one of my favorites as a SSP/preamp, even exceeding the SQ (IMHO) from my previous Lexicon MC12 which came after the Halo. In fact, if it wasn't for the great deal I got on the MC12, I would've probably had some regrets with the change.