Pre Klipsch Aragon vs Parasound amps - Page 3

James W. Johnson · 08-03-2004, 10:46 AM

Call me an "objectivist," but I won't buy gear without it being tested somewhere first.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Now that you mention it, I cannot find any Parasound , Proceed or Aragon tests on the internet.

Yogi · 08-03-2004, 11:51 AM

Quote:

I went ahead and bought the 2003A, now I am going to feel guilty sending my 1500A to surround duty, especially since its going to power some very easy to drive speakers that I am currently building.

Or better you could drive the front L/R with the 1500A and the center and surrounds with the 2003A. The reason being that the center carries most of the load during movie playback and so if that could be powered from a separate amp that doesn't share the L/R channels (also power hogs). In your case the 2003A would be ideal for that scenario since the surround channels dont need much power anyways and so you will have the full 200W (or even more since there is a common powersupply). The 1500A will be able to power the L/R with ease. That way you also wont feel guilty about the 1500A driving the surrounds and the 2003 would have a good chunk of power utilized driving the center.

Kevin C Brown · 08-03-2004, 08:28 PM

James- Try:

http://www.ecoustics.com/Editorial/R...Alpha_Name/All

and

http://www.ecoustics.com/Editorial/R...lpha_Name/All/

And here's a Proceed one that's not on ecoustics:

http://www.audiorevolution.com/equip/proceedhpa2/

James W. Johnson · 08-04-2004, 11:07 AM

Thanks Kevin, there was at least one solid review of an HCA-1000A so that can at least tell me a little bit about how Parasound rates their gear.
I wish Audioexpress would audition more gear,
http://www.audioxpress.com/reviews/media/AX601HA.pdf

Thanks for the advice Yogi, I like your idea ..but of course I have to at least try out the 2003A for stereo duty first to see how it compares to my HCA-1500A.

James W. Johnson · 08-04-2004, 11:59 AM

Kevin, I found several more reviews on Parasound's website, incuding a comparison between the HPA3 , 2205A and AT2505.

I also found a Home Theater review on the 2205A and would like to understand the following excerpt:

"With 5 channels driven into 8ohms the amp delivers 160 watts before it starts clipping and progesses to 275 watts beefore reaching 1% THD"

That seems like an oxymoron to me..I always thought by the time an amp starts clipping it would be well over 1% THD hence the harshness one associates with clipping.

Whats the deal here?

Edit: actually I think that is a typo , I bet they meant the amp was at .1% distortion (not clipping) at 160watts and 1% at 275 watts. I subscribe to Home Theater and they always do it this way..the clipping part makes zero sence.

Yogi · 08-04-2004, 12:28 PM

Quote:

Edit: actually I think that is a typo , I bet they meant the amp was at .1% distortion (not clipping) at 160watts and 1% at 275 watts. I subscribe to Home Theater and they always do it this way..the clipping part makes zero sence.

Actually the amp starts clipping before it reaches 0.1% distortion. So what they are saying is right. Clipping is when your sinewaves start getting chopped off and that happens long before 0.1% on solid state amps.

James W. Johnson · 08-04-2004, 01:04 PM

Perhaps so but I am pretty sure that is not what they meant.

So clipping happens LONG before .1%? , wow you make .1% seem pretty big.

How about something to back up your seemingly very general statement?

Yogi · 08-04-2004, 01:27 PM

From Hometheater mags web site:

Quote:

Signal distortion usually decreases gradually as the output level increases, until the signal reaches the limits of the amplifier. At this point, the distortion increases dramatically. While we specify the power output at the initial onset of distortion, the more-important measurements are at the point where the distortion makes up 0.1 percent of the signal and at the point where the distortion makes up 1 percent of the signal.

Quote:

Figure 1: Our measurement chart shows the amplifier's power output versus distortion. We note the power before distortion and at 0.1 percent (A) and 1 percent (B) distortion.

From the graph its quite obvious that this amp starts clipping at around 0.001% THD right where you see the slope gets discontinuous. The hear might not hear it ( actually it probably does as harshness in the signal) but the amp is actually clipping. Mags usually report the 0.1% and the 1% points.

If you want a specific example here are the measured results of Cinenova Grand amp from the HTM site.

Quote:

measurement shows that the Grande's left amplifier channel, with two channels driving 8-ohm loads, began clipping at 0.0037% distortion and 245.3 watts. The amp reaches 0.1% distortion at 294.4 watts and 1% distortion at 328.9 watts, as shown above. Into 4 ohms, the amp began clipping at 0.0082% distortion and 478.6 watts and reaches 0.1% distortion at 604.4 watts and 1% distortion at 661.1 watts. The amplifier's frequency response was +0.06 /-0.19 decibels from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. The response rose to +0.1 dB at 10 Hz and to -0.78 dB at 50 kHz. THD+N from the amplifier was less than 0.013% at 1 kHz, with 2.8 volts output.—CW

Hope that helps.

Cheers.

Kevin C Brown · 08-04-2004, 08:50 PM

James- I'll have to check out that Proceed and Parasound comparison.

(If you can dig up the link before I find it myself, that'd be cool...)

James W. Johnson · 08-04-2004, 09:09 PM

NP, here you go..nice pics inside too!...
http://parasound.com/service_informa...2205a_ws33.pdf

http://parasound.com/service_informa...plrevlist.html

Kevin C Brown · 08-05-2004, 12:39 AM

Cool. If you look at WSR's web site and the back issues index, you'll find that Richard Hardesty did a multi-series amplifier review over a bunch of years. Something like issues 18, 20, 25, 28, and 33 (more or less). I bought them all

because I was interested in what he had to say. He obviously really liked Parasound (he reviewed at least 3 of them I think), and he himself at that time had Proceeds in his system.