Parasound & ATI amps

[Irvrobinson]

Could be a sales gimmick. But if they are all A stock and getting a good deal... ATI builds theirs like a proverbial tank.

I agree. I've purchased one myself, supposedly B-stock, and it sure looks like A-stock to me.

 

[sharkman]

I'm a little confused. Jeff at ATI said the amp that I am looking at on classic audio parts would be a brand new A stock item. On the site it says all amps are B stock... What???

Sometimes manufacturers or dealers want to move some stock that isn't selling fast enough. They usually are leery of advertising brand new A stock on discount, because then everybody would simply wait for the next sale. By advertising B stock and shipping A stock, they solve a problem and the customer gets a discount on A stock. I got a deal like this with a Nad C326Bee last year. The dealer advertised demo stock and the invoice said graphite(I didn't want graphite, but for the $80 discount would take it). What I received was a brand new in box nice black unit. So if the sales guy says you'll get an A stock, that might be why.

I'd suggest you look at Parasound as well. Everybody's got their favourite brand, and my experiment with Parasound made a believer out of me.

Here's a clip of the owner of Parasound talking about his amps.

 

[PENG]

Yup, smaller transformers is certainly one of the advantages of class D. I don't hear any transformer hum in any of my systems, even my tube amp with 3 honking transformers. Yeah, if I put my ear right next to it, then maybe a little, but I don't listen to music with my ear on the transformer so it is a non-issue

I can definitely agree with you on this one. When people says their amp is dead silent, or their transformer hums are inaudible, I just have to wonder. Incredibly as it may sound, of all the gear I have had ever owned or had my ears touching them in dealer demo rooms, I could hear the transformer hum in every single one of them.

The Halo A21 is among the quiestest of amps considering the kVA rating of its power transformer, but I can hear the transformer easily without even my ears touching the top. It is audible from within a few inches. Surprisingly, I found my old Denon AVR-3805 hums the least, only audible slightly by pressing my ears against the thin gauge enclosure when the room is almost perfectly quiet, but then it is a smaller transformer, probably 600 to 750VA at the most.

I know ADTG told me he could not hear his ATI amps with ears touching, but he also told me he could not hear the distortion at the end of Adele's crescendos yet those distortions that sounded like poor micing are very obvious to me to the point while I love her songs I wish she had better quality (sadly it is only the vocal part) recordings. I guess I do not have perfect hearing but am super sensitive to transformer hum frequencies and those resulted from poor micing (sorry if there is no such word).

Now the facts, all transformers hum, it is just a matter of how audible. IMHO as long as one cannot hear it from a couple of feet away then one can argue that it is practically silent though not really dead silent in an absolute sense. So I think >99% of most quality amps such as the Parasound Halo models, ATI, Bryston etc. should have no issue with transformer hum. There is absolutely no need to worry about it if you can hear yours from within an inch just because someone on some forums tells you his/her is dead silent.

 

[slipperybidness]

I admit that when I see wires flying around an amp chassis, especially any wires in the signal path, I do wonder about the amp's unweighted SNR. There's also the reliability and quality factors, as those solder joints are usually handmade, and humans assemble these products, so flying wires are susceptible to all sorts of problems. It is a factor worth making a buying decision about? Maybe. Definitely maybe.

I'm sure you have enough experience to know that making things look simple and clean takes a LOT of skill. That type of skill doesn't happen overnight. I am very impressed by what I see inside the ATI.

Is it worth basing a buying decision on that alone? No. But when you take other factors into account, that is certainly icing on the ATI cake. Clean layout, fuseless design, and protection circuits that are out of the signal path, 7 year warranty and good pricing = sign me up!

And, back to that clean layout. If it does eventually fail down the line, it looks to me that it would be easier to repair myself or take to a friend for repair.

In all honesty, I'm not even convinced that I will ever purchase a consumer amp again. I'm really looking at great, no-compromise DIY designs that can out-perform consumer designs for a lot less $. If I do ever purchase an amp again, ATI is top of the list followed by a pro-level Crown/QSC/Yammy.

 

[slipperybidness]

I'm a little confused. Jeff at ATI said the amp that I am looking at on classic audio parts would be a brand new A stock item. On the site it says all amps are B stock... What???

Everyone on AH that has bought from CAP says they looked like A stock too.

I think they just label it as B stock on the CAP site to keep from upsetting their distributors and undercutting them.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I know ADTG told me he could not hear his ATI amps with ears touching.

I can hear the transformer hum from the Denon AVP, but not the ATI amps.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Everyone on AH that has bought from CAP says they looked like A stock too.

I think they just label it as B stock on the CAP site to keep from upsetting their distributors and undercutting them.

I think it depends. Some are really new (~ 25% off discount), while some were returned by customers that just look new (~ 50% off).

 

[cpp]

I can hear the transformer hum from the Denon AVP, but not the ATI amps.

hey did you turn it on

ps: Not a single note coming from my ATI , quiet no hum

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

hey did you turn it on

ps: Not a single note coming from my ATI , quiet no hum

Ha, ha, ha.

 

[Irvrobinson]

Everyone on AH that has bought from CAP says they looked like A stock too.

I think they just label it as B stock on the CAP site to keep from upsetting their distributors and undercutting them.

Actually, on my AT3005 I got a lower price from a dealer than I would have from CAP.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Actually, on my AT3005 I got a lower price from a dealer than I would have from CAP.

Very true.

It's who you know.

 

[cpp]

Very true.

It's who you know.

That's true.

It would be interesting to compare a ATI 2002, Bryston 4bSST and a Parasound Halo A21 connected to the same music, source and speakers and have a comparison.. All great products

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

That's true.

It would be interesting to compare a ATI 2002, Bryston 4bSST and a Parasound Halo A21 connected to the same music, source and speakers and have a comparison.. All great products

They all sound "different", of course.

But they all sound fantastic.

 

[RichB]

This weekend, a friend and I were trying out a DAC/Preamp to see how it sounds against his Denon AVP-A1HDCI (with XT32), Denon - POA-A1HDCI 10 channel amp, and Focal 1038Be's.

The AVP has one obtuse menu system. After a while finally turned off Audyssey and were playing pink noise to level match with an OmniMic (I do that now, to reduce the number of jabs that must be endured on certain audiophile sites ).

Two interesting things occurred.

1) The Left channel (equidistant from the couch) was set to -10 and it did not sound unduly imbalanced. There was some justification since the left channel was near a wall and the right was near an opening. Still, 10 DB is a very large volume difference. We zeroed them would and the right channel became much softer. Perhaps a factory reset in order.

2) Both channels had gross distortion when the volume was turned up to -5 (which for some reason was not ridiculously high) while playing Alison Krauss "Lie Awake". This is not a very demand recording.
The tweeter sounded OK but the midrange was atrocious. To the point that we switched channels to make sure the speaker was not defective. Turning off bridged mode cured most of the midrange problem.

Another goal is to replace his amp with two amps that are a little more manageable, less than 100 lbs. each.
The Parasound A21 + A51 are likely candidates.

- Rich

EDIT: We took some measurements of his room with XT32 engaged and bypassed. Very little was done the midrange but Audyssey did a very good job at removing a large hum at 100Hz and flatting the lower bass. (shout out the you know who )

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

The Parasound A21 + A51 are likely candidates.

Too bad Parasound doesn't make a 7Ch amp like the ATI AT3007.

 

[Cos]

Too bad Parasound doesn't make a 7Ch amp like the ATI AT3007.

It's too hard to pack that much awesomeness into one case.....actually I would be very happy if they did make a 7 channel unit, but that would definitely push the weight > 100 lbs

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

It's too hard to pack that much awesomeness into one case.....actually I would be very happy if they did make a 7 channel unit, but that would definitely push the weight > 100 lbs

Ha, ha.

A fair compromise in slight increased weight for a substantial decrease in price.

But that would mean less money for Parasound. Oops. That will never happen.

 

[RichB]

Ha, ha.

A fair compromise in slight increased weight for a substantial decrease in price.

But that would mean less money for Parasound. Oops. That will never happen.

If you look at the layout of ATI and Parasound, ATI is card based with multiple vertical transformers in front and Parasound with a single transform in the middle.

ATI design results in taller amps in the 3000/6000 series, wrapped transformers, and a highly configurable number of channels. Reduced costs with standardized channels.
The down-side of this, is that most do not need 300 WPC for all 7 channels so you are overbuying some of them.

Parasound has a lower profile product, with epoxy encased transformer (with some sound dampening), but less standardized and less configurable.
They would have to move to a different case design to accommodate 7 channels and perhaps multiple transformers.
They have smaller 2 channel amps surround channels. At one time, there were lower end multi-channel amps but they did not sell well enough.

Folks who want separate amps seem to want power. Analogous to desire for a muscle car.


- Rich

 

[PENG]

That's true.

It would be interesting to compare a ATI 2002, Bryston 4bSST and a Parasound Halo A21 connected to the same music, source and speakers and have a comparison.. All great products

I just did it with the 4B SST and the A21 only as I don't have an ATI. Most people probably would not like the way I did it.

 

[Cos]

I just did it with the 4B SST and the A21 only as I don't have an ATI. Most people probably would not like the way I did it.

Do share you thoughts on this comparison.