Parasound Halo Integrated integrated amplifier

Like baking bread or watering my garden, playing records in my monk's cell is an expression of my devotion to living mindfully. It is part of my search for identity and comfort. It shows me how my thoughts, feelings, and poetic imagination fit in with yours, Keith Jarrett's, and everyone else's. The only problem: Often, the stereo components that most enhance my experiences of devotion and identity are not those that I can sincerely declare to be the most accurate or neutral.

Actually, there's another problem: I am an audiophile who only minimally comprehends what accurate and neutral actually mean in terms of reproduced sound. But! Stereophile's founder and prototypical audio sage, the late J. Gordon Holt, thoughtfully defined both in his "Sounds Like? An Audio Glossary":

accuracy The degree to which the output signal from a component or system is perceived as replicating the sonic qualities of its input signal. An accurate device reproduces what is on the recording, which may or may not be an accurate representation of the original sound. [my emphases]

neutral Free from coloration.

Almost perversely, JGH's definition of accuracy requires 100% speculation on the part of the critical listener. All I can conclude from this definition is that, if I listen to the same recording through a number of different high-end systems, I might develop an imaginary construct of what was written on the disc.

His definition of neutral is easier. I learned it from Goldilocks: not too warm, not too cool, not too bright or dull, nor too hard or soft, etc. In short, just right.

I asked my Facebook friends what they thought is meant by a reviewer who describes a component's sound as "neutral." Surprisingly, many of them said, "boring or dull." Some, agreeing with Goldilocks, thought it meant "just right." But several said that neutral means "no personality." I gulped.

I read John Marks's excellent column in the August 2015 issue, in which he addressed the question "Should a loudspeaker have a personality?" I thought, How can it not? How can any audio component not have a personality?

Then I began playing some favorite recordings with Parasound's new Halo Integrated amplifier ($2495). I kept playing discs and listening for a Parasound personality—an obvious sonic signature—but I couldn't hear one. This lack of a Parasound sound threw me off my reviewer game. Frustrated, and for the sake of this review, I was forced to speculate about the nature of accurate and neutral.

Description
Since 1981, Richard Schram, founder and CEO of Parasound Products, Inc., has built the brand on making audio components that look and sound expensive, but sell for much less than it appears they should. Schram has also built Parasound on the substantial legend of audio engineer John Curl, designer of such enduringly influential classics as the Vendetta Research SCP-2 phono preamplifier. The SCP-2 was a high-quality, high-gain, low-noise RIAA stage from the 1980s that probably spawned the oft-abused reviewer term: ink-black backgrounds.

Parasound products are built in Taiwan. In an online report posted in July 2014 by Jason Victor Serinus, one factory there "has been engaged in continuous production of Parasound products since 1982. Quality is checked both in Taiwan and the United States, which assures that the products maintain their reputation for quality in the 60 countries in which they are sold."

The Halo Integrated, which measures 17.25" wide by 16.25" deep by 5.875" high and weighs 33 lbs, is the first new integrated amplifier from Parasound since 1986. Its class-A/AB output section, which provides 160Wpc into 8 ohms, is based on bipolar transistors, while its input and driver stages use JFETs and MOSFETs, respectively. Like the Halo P 5 2.1-channel D/A preamplifier, the Integrated has built-in, variable-frequency high- and low-pass crossovers, a home-theater bypass input for integration into a surround-sound system, and a front-panel level control for a subwoofer. According to Schram, "The Halo Integrated is the only amp on the market that provides a sub channel/out for the two-channel analog and the digital sources that are connected to it."

When I asked to review the Halo, Schram was a little worried: "Herb, I thought you only liked integrated amplifiers that come stripped down, with features like DACs, phono stages, and headphone amps going Ö la carte." Truth is, I like any integrated that plays music enjoyably. If, like the Halo, its standard equipment includes a moving-magnet/moving-coil phono stage, a discrete headphone amplifier, and a 32-bit ESS Sabre32 DAC chip, then please, Mr. Schram, make it better than what I can afford to add on my own. (Is that a gauntlet I see lying on the floor?)

The Halo's phono stage has RCA inputs with gain that's switch-selectable for MM or MC, and with a choice of loading MC cartridges with 100 or 47k ohms. I like having two turntables and sometimes two or three external computer/DAC/CD sources; gloriously, the Halo Integrated's rear panel has five line-level inputs (RCA). There are also an XLR input (when used, this replaces the fifth RCA input), and stereo line-level outputs and a subwoofer output—all balanced, all XLRs.

The Halo's USB, optical, and coaxial digital inputs are selectable from the front panel: That's a lot of inputs. Also on the front panel, starting from the left, are: a 3.5mm headphone jack, a 3.5mm Aux input for a portable MP3 player or mobile phone, and Bass and Treble controls and their defeat button. On the right is a small Input knob: As this is rotated, 11 tiny blue LEDs light up in sequence below a row of 11 minutely labeled input choices: Aux, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Phono, Opt, Coax, USB, Bypass. The labels are so small (2mm high) that I needed a flashlight and a jeweler's loupe to see which input I'd selected. Next to the Input knob are the Sub Level and Balance controls. I love balance knobs—I call them imaging controls—but why oh why does the Halo's balance control not appear on its blue-lit remote handset, so that I could fine-tune it while listening?

Speaking of Listening
Throughout my listening for this review, the Halo Integrated played with generous measures of that afore-defined neutrality. What little personality it had remained hidden, like a cat in the bushes—which made it easy to hear the sonic qualities of every associated component I used with it.

Moving-Magnet Phono Stage
The Halo's MM stage sounded quiet and gentle. (I'd begun to type soft, but gentle is more accurate.) I used it extensively with two combinations of turntable, tonearm, and cartridge: the Technics SL1200MK2, SME M2-9, and Soundsmith Carmen; and the Acoustic Signature Wow XL, TA-1000, and Ortofon 2M Black. Both cartridges were fastidiously fine-tuned for correct vertical tracking angle (VTA) and stylus rake angle (SRA), but even so, the Halo's MM stage imparted a slightly hesitant, placid touch to all transients.

But enjoyably, on the 1981 Munich concert included in Keith Jarrett's Concerts: Bregenz München (3 LPs, ECM-3-1227), the Parasound reproduced the pianist's vocalizations, as well as the applause and audience sounds, with an easy, intimate realism that I think all Jarrett enthusiasts would appreciate. (During a recent solo performance at Carnegie Hall, Jarrett urged his fans to embrace his LP catalog: "I believe my work is best understood by listening to the LPs.")

Jarrett's close-miked foot stomps and spontaneous vocal provocations had extremely natural tone through the Halo Integrated. I love Jarrett's music, but I feel I have only begun to grasp the bigger picture of what he aspires to creatively. The Halo's MM phono stage seemed to figuratively slow his music just enough to let me examine his improvisations from a more intimate vantage. Dynamics, especially microdynamics, were enjoyably natural; their well-scaled action made me feel closer than usual to Jarrett's disquieting art.

Moving-Coil Phono Stage
In contrast to its MM stage's gentleness, the Halo Integrated's MC stage exhibited more punch and openness. Macrodynamics and inner detail dramatically increased. Using Jasmine Audio's Turtle and Zu's Denon DL-103 MC cartridges, I played John Cage's Concerto for Prepared Piano and Orchestra, with pianist Yuji Takahashi, and Lukas Foss conducting the Buffalo Philharmonic (LP, Nonesuch H-71202). Cage believed (as I do) that art continues to be vigorous and useful as long as it continues to be difficult and irritating. I never actually find Cage irritating, but with the Halo Integrated, this razor-sharp concerto startled me, and fastened my attention on a simple musical question: What could possibly happen next?

COMPANY INFO
Parasound Products, Inc.
2250 McKinnon Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94124
(415) 397-7100
ARTICLE CONTENTS

COMMENTS
Ishmael's picture

Herb, I think you may have been given bad info somewhere along the line. Your Burson does not use a TI chip for the headphone out. In fact Burson is very anti-opamp, and has been pushing that agenda for some time. I believe the Halo integrated uses the same headphone stage as Parasound's Zdac v2 incorporating a TI TPA6130a2 chip. Other than that, a very enjoyable write up.

Long-time listener's picture

Looking at the graphs showing the tone controls, I've realized this is not an amp I want to buy. The fashion in tone controls these days is to "keep them out of the midrange" by boosting mostly the extreme highs and lows. But the result is that all you get is a lot of extra hiss in the high treble along with some awful, thudding, one-note bass. I've had several amps with tone controls like this and I hate them.

To actually hear a subjective increase in bass or treble, tone controls need to center more on the mid-bass (100 Hz) and mid-treble (10 kHz), and should level off below and above those that points. This doesn't affect the midrange, except in the sense of providing a nice transition to it. The tone controls in this amp are useless. Fashions come and go; this one has never made any sense.

nick22samm's picture

I couldn't disagree more. Like most, I prefer to bypass the tone controls, but they are far from useless, and how important and useful a function they serve will be HEAVILY dependent on the rest of your equipment, the albums you're listening to/how they were mastered, and your preferences. Boosting treble a bit for certain albums, especially with my paradigm studio speakers, has proven to be an invaluable asset that brings the sound quality to a whole new level, allowing the entire system to work together in a way that produces sound rivaling systems and speakers 10 times the cost. It has also allowed tweaks to allow me to get a poor mastering of one album to sound identical to that of a known to be better master of the same album, in the same or different format. Some "audiophile," tenets really need to go away and people need to be more open to various features, formats, etc, instead of sticking to their preconceived beliefs with greater conviction than religious zealots.

the short of it: the tone controls are not useless, they're very valuable; and with true bypass inherent in its circuity, the worst-case scenario for its biggest opponents is simple: don't use it

Long-time listener's picture

You're not reading what I wrote. I said the tone controls "in this amp," are, for me, useless. I didn't say ALL tone controls are useless. I'm VERY heavily in favor of them. But again, if they only boost the very lowest bass and the very highest treble, it only results in a dull, thudding bass or extra hiss and brightness. Tone controls whose action includes a boost in the mid-bass and mid-treble as well as the further extremes are much more musical, and are the ones I favor.

nick22samm's picture

doing vinyl rips with and without tone controls on, set to various degrees, and comparing them to one another, as well as needledrops with the tone controls off, has completely debunked your assertion, verified not just by listening but comparing the visual audiowaves of each recording at the same point in the song to one another. And certainly no highlighting hiss unless completely maxing out the treble, or using it on an already hot or treble-heavy album/master

Allen Fant's picture

Very good review -HR.
the specs certainly make this integrated powerful. Maggies aside, the ultimate speaker to drive would be the Thiel Cs 2.4 or Cs 2.7.
These too, are current-hungry monsters that deliver the audio "goods" when fed properly.

wgb113's picture

My two primary transducers of choice. I wonder how the Halo would match up with my McIntosh MA6300 & Oppo HA-1 combo. Could be nice to "downsize" and have more flexibility in the subwoofer integration department.

tschwagerl's picture

thanks for taking the time to write about several different type of speakers paired with this particular amp. I wish more reviews would write little paragraphs detailing the differences between each one (what you liked and didn't like). Most helpful when trying to find the right combination.

schmonballins's picture

I know it's late to comment on this review, but I have owned my Halo Integrated for over a year and this review is entirely accurate. I have my Halo Integrated paired with PBN Audio's Montana EPS Speakers. This amp makes those speakers sing. I use every part of this amp, and I must say that this review is accurate. I just wanted to make a plug for this amp powering some more "affordable" Montana Speakers. It is a great pairing, I know that I am late to comment. Most people buying Montana speakers have a bigger budget for all of the other components, but if you are looking for a pair of used EPS speakers or EPS2s they can be had for around 5K, plus the 2.5K for this amp, you have an amazing stereo for less than 10K.

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