Annual CEDIA offer

[Chris D]

Headed out to CEDIA 2013 this week, if my back cooperates. (screwed it up last week) Same offer I make every year here. Just let me know if there's particular products or companies you'd like to hear about, Parasound or otherwise.

Thank goodness CEDIA is back in Denver again. I'm one of the majority that strongly prefers it there.

[Chris D]

Similar to last year, Parasound's getting some very good attention and activity this year at CEDIA. The booth was full literally all day today.

Great look at the P5. All-analog stereo pre-amp, a replacement of the P3 with a bunch new stuff added. Note the 3-setting phono pre-amp section, the crossover knobs, the balanced input/output/sub jacks, and the internal DAC. Not the same DAC as the zDAC or CD 1, unfortunately, as that would have added at LEAST another $500 to the unit cost. Bass management occurs all in the analog domain. Shown in both silver and black. Some cool "tweaks" to the Halo look, like a slightly rounded volume knob that is sandblasted on the side. Shipping next week. Another thing that's cool, and pretty big for lovers of both music and movies, is the bypass section, so you can wire this into a surround system, and use your surround processor for multi-channel stuff, but then keep the P5 as running the strictly 2-channel material, and not have to swap any speaker or line-level cables back and forth between to two to make it happen.











The P5 is also up on Parasound's website, with high-res photos that look a lot better than my little iPhone pics there.

http://parasound.com/halo/p5.php

The all-black Halo stack really looks sexy. That's a P5, CD 1, and A31, which would make for one heck of a clean audio stack performing like a million bucks. Me, I still prefer my classic, brushed silver Halo gear. Yes, that means that all my Halo gear in my rack is silver while everything else is black, but... I think it looks GOOOOOOD.

Just let me know if anybody wants more pics of other stuff there. Some new face printing on the New Classic gear, they're highlighting the Zquattro 4-channel digital amp, and again showing the zstack in silver. Matter of fact, I'll probably take more pics when I go back to the booth.

FWIW, Middle Atlantic is also showing two AWESOME power management half-rack units that would take a Zcustom system (I call mine a Zystem, or Zetup) to a whole new level of protection. They also make a rack for half-rack gear, although I haven't seen it. I wonder how it would compare to the Zcube.

[Chris D]

[r100gs]

Cool, Thanks for the pics Chris!:T

[Blindamood]

Any word on Parasound getting back into the surround processor market?

[Chris D]

Yeah, unfortunately, that's not going to happen. The Parasound guys haven't said it specifically lately, but they're focused on fine A/V, not cutting-edge video processing and tech such as it contained in today's processors and receivers. Unfortunately, a side effect of today's video tech and progressing HDMI specs, means that a product is outdated within 6 months. Case in point, see my post on HDMI 2.0, and how it is going to screw up HDMI matrices: http://www.htguide.com/forum/showthr...le-on-HDMI-2-0 The direction the market is going, I just don't think it's a viable business model anymore, for small and "boutique" companies (as Parasound could be considered) to make high-end surround processors and receivers. So I think we'll continue to see products from them like the Halo P7, the multichannel pre-amp. But I think the ship has sailed for us to see a surround processor, BD player, or other particular products from Parasound and other companies like them.

Here's more and better pics of the CEDIA booth and the products. Note the slightly evolved appearance of the P5 front panel with slight rounding and side sand-blasting of the volume knob and such. Amazing that even with a decent camera, it's tough to take really nice pics of the black Halo gear in public settings like CEDIA. I don't have any black Halo gear myself, so I can't play around with pictures at home. Start with the overall booth. The people in the aisles are talking Parasound too.