For those of you who haven't been following my auditions of a Parasound Halo A21 vs a RB 1080 over at Club Parasound, I'll repeat my conlusions here:
Well we all knew it had to come down to a decision point sooner or later. And here I sit trying to decide which amp goes up on Audiogon. Here is my analysis in my room with my speakers and my processor and my cd player. Understand that you may have different results with your system.
Cosmetics and build quality: The exterior casework on the Halo is definitely superior until one gets to the back panel where the A21 is a bit of a letdown in the utter cheapness of the speaker connectors switches and knobs. Under the hood is about equal in terms of wiring cleanliness and routing. I’m not qualified to comment on the quality of components; I just wouldn’t know the difference between one Chinese resistor and another. My Conclusion: advantage Halo.
Listening: I just about listened to my entire CD collection during this past week. I’ve been favorably impressed with the A21 for it’s warmth and huge sound stage. At the same time that huge sound stage tended to make some of my program material lack intimacy. The real test came with some classical piano music. We have a high quality baby grand piano sitting within sight of the audio equipment, and therefore operating in the same acoustical environment. The Rotel repeatedly and consistently sounded more like the real piano in terms of clarity and timbre and resolution. The same passages when played over the A21 sounded more like a recording, they just lacked a certain something that made the music ...well musical. The A21 sounded really great on most material and so-so on a small bit, where the Rotel was more consistent. My Conclusion: advantage Rotel.
Bang for the Buck: the value part of the equation is always a factor. My Conclusion: advantage Rotel.
There you have it folks. Both are definitely great amps and while the Halo represents a change in my system it is definitely not an upgrade over Rotel, so the RB 1080 is the keeper.
Well we all knew it had to come down to a decision point sooner or later. And here I sit trying to decide which amp goes up on Audiogon. Here is my analysis in my room with my speakers and my processor and my cd player. Understand that you may have different results with your system.
Cosmetics and build quality: The exterior casework on the Halo is definitely superior until one gets to the back panel where the A21 is a bit of a letdown in the utter cheapness of the speaker connectors switches and knobs. Under the hood is about equal in terms of wiring cleanliness and routing. I’m not qualified to comment on the quality of components; I just wouldn’t know the difference between one Chinese resistor and another. My Conclusion: advantage Halo.
Listening: I just about listened to my entire CD collection during this past week. I’ve been favorably impressed with the A21 for it’s warmth and huge sound stage. At the same time that huge sound stage tended to make some of my program material lack intimacy. The real test came with some classical piano music. We have a high quality baby grand piano sitting within sight of the audio equipment, and therefore operating in the same acoustical environment. The Rotel repeatedly and consistently sounded more like the real piano in terms of clarity and timbre and resolution. The same passages when played over the A21 sounded more like a recording, they just lacked a certain something that made the music ...well musical. The A21 sounded really great on most material and so-so on a small bit, where the Rotel was more consistent. My Conclusion: advantage Rotel.
Bang for the Buck: the value part of the equation is always a factor. My Conclusion: advantage Rotel.
There you have it folks. Both are definitely great amps and while the Halo represents a change in my system it is definitely not an upgrade over Rotel, so the RB 1080 is the keeper.
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