First off, a sincere thank you to Brian for hosting the 5 of us that made it. I finally got to hear both an infinite baffle subwoofer and the very impressive VR4jrs. It was a fun afternoon!
What amp was the clear winner? Can you please describe what you liked and didn’t like about each amp?
Ok, here come the qualifiers... that was the first time I heard Brian's setup, and the first time I heard any of the components making up his system. There were several of us rotating through different audition tunes, but I was only familiar with the one I provided (Track 5 of "Heart: The Road Home," which is an all acoustic track recorded live that keeps adding layers as it progresses).
That said... the amps were surprisingly similar in sound despite a huge difference in cost. (The 260w/8 Ohm x 2 channel Crown XLS 402 is in the $300 range and the 250w/8 Ohms x 5 channel Parasound Halo A51 is in the $4000 ballpark.) I picked the Parasound as the "clearer" amp, but with that came a slightly hotter top end. It was a small difference, but I could identify that characteristic consistently. That said, when we dropped a BPT 3.5 Signature power conditioner in the mix, it seemed to tame the Halo's hotter highs a bit while giving both amps a slightly blacker background. (Brian does have a dedicated set of 20 amp and 15 amp lines feeding the system.)
In short, I liked the slight added clarity of the Halo, but if I was faced with buying one or the other, I'd have to save my money for something else and go with the Crown.
(Brian, can you list the details of your system? Thanks!)