Parasound Halo JC-1 -VS- Bryston 7B-ST?

FWIW - I purchased used JC1s from a member here that I will not name. The amps were advertised as having no problems. Unfortunately this was not the case. The lights on both amps would change from red to purple but never blue. One mono started running extra hot. I sent them in to Parasound and I believe they performed the repairs the day they recieved the amps. I was without the amps for a total of 10 days. I dont think the repairs could have been done any faster and Im not even the original owner. It was not cheap but they are perfect now and I have nothing but good things to say about Parasound.

I am a current though not future customer of Parasound (I am choosing to go a different direction with my amps). From my experiences, Parasound offers outstanding customer service. I have dealt directly with Richard S. and Paul B. They went out of their way to first get me an in house demo unit of the A21 amp then did everything they could to give me a new replacement unit after I expressed concern about havin to wait for a repair.

Every company has their share of happy customer and unhappy customers. With forums such as these, news travels pretty fast so companies will not be able to to survive if they continue to offer poor customer service. My feeling is that Parasound is one of the good guys.

Braro, I think one of my JC1's had something similarly wrong; however, mine just stuck on red. That said, the amps played fine, but my nervosa got the better of me and I sent it back to Parasound to fix. It was a simple voltage clamp that was undersized...they charged me nothing except return shipping and I had it back in less than 10 days. I would say from my experience that the customer service was outstanding...and I'm the 2nd owner.

On the subject of this thread, unfortunately I have never heard a Bryston amp so can't offer any insight there. I have heard the Magnepan MG3.6's driven by both the JC1's, the Pass X600, and the McCormack DNA2 with Rev A mods. In my opinion, the X-600 was a large step down from either the JC1's or the McCormack...I really did not like the sound of the X-600...veiled, thin, and despite the power rating, it sounded less powerful (keep in mind these are relative statements and may not apply in a totally different system). The McCormack and JC1's were much closer, though of a different flavor. The JC1's are extraordinarily transparent and I feel extended on the highs. The McCormack was a little better in the low frequency weight (not by alot), had a slightly better "bloom" in the midrange, but also sounded darker or more closed in on the top. Both are fantastic amps...I preferred the JC1's in my system.

I have had simply OUTSTANDING customer service on a used Parasound JC-1 power amp that I purchased here on Audiogon.
I accidently blew it up the first time by dropping the end of an interconnect that was hooked to my CD player onto one of the speaker cable ends.
I had to pay for this repair, of course, [no warranty].
Well, about a month later the amp was playing at a normal volume level and just "blew up" again???
This time I sent it to Parasound again.
They fixed it, and even sent me another replacement driver board all for FREE!
They even paid the return shipping!
I have had no further problems at all with either of these amps and its going on 9 months now.
All the folks there treated me with the utmost respect and kindness, including Richard and Tony.
I wish more companies were as outstanding at customer service as Parasound and Pass Labs!
I would have No Hesitation at all in using their customer service dept, or in purchasing a new product from either of them.
Again, great job Parasound and thanks.
Just my 2 cents.
Lanny

I called Parasound and I AM an idiot!

Normally I don't like contributing to these types of exchanges but I am from the restaurant industry and you know the old motto: do something good for someone and they'll tell two people. Do something bad and they'll tell two hundred.

I don't know the gent who felt compelled to pass along second-hand victriolic comments about Parasound and I am sure that there are people out there who've had bad experiences with Parasound or with their bank or with an IRS audit. Yet it says something that many are responding with good things about Parasound and I am one of them. Here is MY story and (to repeat) I am an idiot in this case and no one at Parasound pointed out this obvious fact:

Up until recently I had a pair of the great (no matter what the snobs might say) JC-1s. On two seprate occasions I called tech support to find out if I had the latest versions, if I could get upgrades, if I could have them inspected, etc., etc. You know these calls: I was wasting the tech's time. Yet the person at the other end (whose name I can't remember, unfortunately) was patient, polite and very knowledgable. For kicks I sent Richard Shram an Email and the poor guy answered back in detail at 11 PM the next night. We exchanged a few more Emails and I let the poor man be.

A while back I was moving amps around and moved a delay switch on one of the amps. When I couldn't get the amp to fire up I panicked and dialed Halo-911. It took the tech but two minutes to diagnose the problem (since his first question was "Have you recently moved the amps?"). He stayed on the line while I made sure everything is OK and we even chatted a bit about the (apparently now cancelled) JC-2 preamp and other things.

Prior to the Halos, I had the baby Halo setup: P3/T3/A23. I sold the P3 on Audiogon and for some reason the buyer received the preamp DOA. He returned it to me and I sent it to Parasound. Three days later I had a new P3. I called to find out why they hadn't just repaired my original one and the tech said "hey, don't worry about it. We'll get to yours. We gave you a new one so you wouldn't be without a component." Was that the truth? Was he reading from a script while Richard Shram had his finger on the button connected to electrodes attached to the tech's body? Who knows, who cares. THEY FREAKIN' SENT ME A BRAND NEW PREAMP!!!!!

And I have similar great (but not a manganemous) stories about my dealings with Pass Labs, Magnum Dynalab and Martin Logan.

My point is this: more often than not you get back what you put out in the universe. It takes A LOT to get a company executive and/or employee to call a customer "idiot" unless, of course, said customer is exhibiting all the classical symptoms of being a total a**hole. I know this from experience when I've baited people to see how much crap they'll take from me before they show me the door.

All of us have horror stories. Mine concerns Sound Lab. I have a story that will make the hair on your heads stand on end, and not because of the sonic bliss of their speakers. But if I were to post it I bet I'd have a hundred rebuttals. Of course, if I didn't that would be very telling.

Sure, it's a public forum and we can all say what we want but maybe we should stop to first think about the implications. Getting on these forums and saying "my friend's third cousin called Unlimited Extreme Super Audio Technologies to complain about something and the next night people showed up at his house, very bad people" doesn't really benefit anyone but it sure gets the blood boilin' I'll lell you what ....