[floresjc]

Anyone have any experience with Salk's and either the Parasound A52 or A51 amps? I'm looking at setting up a SongTower system for my dad and the A52's in particular are more in his price range. All the info I've ever seen on them has been glowing, just looking for for detailed input from any Parasound fans on the board.

[gerald porzio]

Altho I have no Song Towers, I run an HCA 750A in a 2ndary system. Parasound makes a good amp for my $.

[MichiganMike]

I drive my SongTowers with a Parasound A23 amp with excellent results.  The Parasound displays good resolution, ample power reserves and fine bass control with my SongTowers in a fairly large space.  The A23 should be very comparable to the A52, but the A23 is only two channels of course.
I also use a Parasound A21 and A51 with Von Schweikert speakers in my 7.1 home theater system and am very pleased with these amps.  The A21 and A51 are an upgrade over the A23 in power, control and finesse, but the difference is subtle on most material.  The SongTowers represent and easier load to drive than my other speakers and the A23 works well with these.  In addition, the A21 and A51 are bulkier, heavier and generate much more heat, which may be issues in some applications.   

[divisionbell77]

Parasound is an excellent manufacturer, especially for amps.  They typically are very conservative in their published specs/measurements.

I know both the classic and Halo lines have new HT processors in the works(and a receiver), not sure on any new amps.  Don't rule out their classic line, nor going with used from audiogon.

[Srgtfury]

I am using the A51 to biamp my 2-Ht3's and am very satisfied.  The audio immersion is common with quality source material.  Hadn't rented a Bdisc in a while and got Hurt Locker this past weekend.  Audio was clean, precise and dynamic, for that genre.  FWIW, the cats actually skyed and hid after the 1st explosion.  IMHO, OK movie, but they must have really disliked Cameron to deny Avatar.

Thank you very much

Fury

[gkinberg]

I am very interested in the older parasound 2205. This seems like a lot of amp for the money on the used market. Is this amp the predesesor to the A51? However, given the price difference, one would guess that the A51 is far supperior. In what way I wonder, any comparisons? I plan to get the Left, Right and Center of either the songtowers or maybe even the HT2 in the near future and am thinking of a good amp. I would like to keep my 3 to 7 channel amp to $1000-1400 max. Any advice?

Thanks, Garth

[K Shep]

I am very interested in the older parasound 2205. This seems like a lot of amp for the money on the used market. Is this amp the predesesor to the A51? However, given the price difference, one would guess that the A51 is supperior. It what way I wonder, any comparisons? I plan to get the Left, Right and Center of either the songtowers or maybe even the HT2 in the near future and am thinking of a good amp. I would like to keep my 3 to 7 channel amp to $1000-1400 max. Any advice?

Thanks, Garth

The 2205 is designed by John Curl.  I would consider the 2205 as a "must try" if it is in your budget.  The product is discontinued and on the older side so you won't get much feed back.  Take a flier on it if you don't like it sell it.

[I.Greyhound Fan]

I own a Parasound A21 amp and its a great amp.  I had it over at Frank Van Alstines house and auditioned it with his gear and the Salk HTR-3 speakers and it sounded great.  No need to worry about the heat issue.  I have Magnepan QR 1.6 speakers and play my music very loud at times and the amp nver really gets warm.  It has Massive heat sinks on its sides.  Its just a great amp top to bottom with excellent bass slam, dynamics and resolution.  Look at the few reviews there are and there is not a bad thing said about the A21 or A51.  The A51 is similar.

You should consider a Van Alstine 3ch amp.  His gear has a great synergy with Salk speakers.  I've heard the Song Towers with VA amps and its a great match.  In fact, they pair their gear at all the Audio shows.

http://www.avahifi.com/root/equipment/amplifier/insight_240_3.htm

[floresjc]

Greyhound -

Thanks for your input. I guess you wouldn't know since I didn't mention it, but I have a few pieces of AVA gear already and experience listening to his stuff. I have the 240, 240/3 and 440 and I love them. In terms of alternative pieces, Parasound was high on my list, but I didn't have any experience with their amps.

For my dad's installation, getting at the gear is not going to be as easy, it will be in a closet installation, so he was looking for units with "auto on" ability. Without this requirement, he'd buy AVA and call it a day, but he doesn't have that particular feature available. I set my gear in there and its not too bad to go in there and fire stuff up, but I can see why he'd want the convenience. 

[MichiganMike]

I am very interested in the older parasound 2205. This seems like a lot of amp for the money on the used market. Is this amp the predesesor to the A51? However, given the price difference, one would guess that the A51 is supperior. It what way I wonder, any comparisons? I plan to get the Left, Right and Center of either the songtowers or maybe even the HT2 in the near future and am thinking of a good amp. I would like to keep my 3 to 7 channel amp to $1000-1400 max. Any advice?

Thanks, Garth

I own the Parasound A51 amp and have been very pleased with it.  This amp has similarities to the older Parasound 2205 and 2205AT amps as well as some differences.  Beyond the Halo cosmetics, the A51 has balanced inputs and some other features the older amps lack.  All these amps use circuitry  designed by John Curl.  The Parasound 2205AT (sold from 2000 to 2004) and 2205A (sold in 1998 and 1999) appear to be close relatives of the A51 in design with similar complementary JFET input stages and MOSFET driver stages and 40 beta-matched 15 amp, 60 MHz bipolar output transistors.  The Halo A51 uses a slightly larger transformer (2.2kv in place of 2kv) and 164,000 microF capacitance instead of 150,000 in the older amps.  These differences may explain the slightly higher output rating of 250 watts for the A51 rather than 220 watts into 8 ohms for the older amps. There may also be some difference in the Class A/AB bias, but this may also vary between units of the same amp.     

[jermmd]

I used a Parasound 5250 with my HT3's for a couple of years and it was very good. I had it matched with the Parasound Classic Processor. I think the 5250 was not a John Curl design but I'm not sure. It had tons of power for my speakers and complimented the HT3's very well.

[I.Greyhound Fan]

If you are on a budget, consider Emotiva amps.  They are a lot of bang for the buck and people really seem to like them.  I think that they would be perfect for HT use.  On the audio review forum, quite a few peoplw onw them and have compared them to higher end amps and they rate very well.  Plus they have a 30 day return policy if you don't like them.

http://emotiva.com/xpa3.shtm

I also like B&K amps.  Again, a lot of bang for the buck and they are a warmer sounding amp similar to AVA amps.  Well built brutes and American Made!  They should mate well with the Song Towers.

http://www.bkcomp.com/products/amplifiers/

[OgOgilby]

For my dad's installation, getting at the gear is not going to be as easy, it will be in a closet installation, so he was looking for units with "auto on" ability. Without this requirement, he'd buy AVA and call it a day, but he doesn't have that particular feature available. I set my gear in there and its not too bad to go in there and fire stuff up, but I can see why he'd want the convenience.

I use a Parasound A-21 to drive HT2 TL's and am very happy with it. I do know that the A-21, A-52, 5125, and 5250 Parasound amps all have the "auto on" feature.