My Parasound A21 review and VS Emotiva XPA


l bought the Parasound halo a21 and the differences of improvement in the sound quality are just unreal, it's like too good to be true, before the parasound i had an Emotiva XPA and after listened to the differences btw the emo and the parasound i got to the conclusion that emotiva made my speakers sounded so bad, the sound quality is night and day differences, I'm was shocked!! It's just unbelievable, to give you a better hint of what I'm talking about, the emotiva is a Honda and the Parasound is a mercedez Benz s63 AMG, or Toyota vs Ferrari lol. I can't believe the sound just can get that good.

Emotiva is not High End they not even close to what high end sounds like, they are good products but never can consider high end, but they claim to be high end, for the price you can get a good Mid-fi sound, but they are out of the high end league, that's a true statement. it's not an opinion, It's what it's. when i demo the parasound i put it side by side with 10,000$ and 12,000 dollars amplifiers and the parasound just sounded as good as those super expensive amps.

The emotiva was my first amplifier so that's why i wrote a review on amazon saying that Emotiva was a truly High end Amp with a consumer price tag LOL, what the Hell i was thinking OMG i was soooooo wrong.

I was only getting 20% of my sonus faber veneres with the emotiva, now I believe I'm getting their full potential 100%, I believed the hype of the emotiva for a while, I was a believer but now i know emotiva is just a good mid-fi amp, nothing more!! If you looking for the best sound as possible please don't get the emotiva, emotiva is not even close to high end, you will be disappointed!! The parasound is the best AMP you can get for the money, i believe that you can spent the double of the money and won't get this kind of performance, Halo is the best Bang for your Buck and i finally found the product that i want to use forever.

to get a better understanding of what i'm talking about, let's say Parasound vs krell is like mercedez benz S Class AMG vs roll royce!!! all depends your budget and how much money you want to spent, but me personally i'm gonna stick with the parasound halo forever.

i use the Cars Example cuz i don't have no words to describe the sound of my system with the halo LOL.

the part that i was even more impressive is with movies, since the Denon X4000 receiver is running the center and surrounds i didn't expect so much differences in the sound quality in the Movie department, but the movies sound nigh and day differences also, but i still need the halo A51 to finish the full amplification department, i'm gonna save up for the A51 cuz i want the same sound quality in the surrounds and center channel, but for now i'm so happy with the performance and soundstage i got from the A21.

I'm very very happy cuz this past saturday i went to the high end show and they were demo the Devialet amps that sounded so good, but the parasound sounds better to me, i can't believe i can get 20,000 dollars performance for 2,500$, THIS IS TO GOOD TO BE TRUE!!! but it's true.
brownsugar_ny
Auxinput is correct.....they were getting killed on shipping and when folks would sell them, they wouldn't ship them correctly and they would get damaged......
brownsugar_ny - I had wanted and bought some gear from a smaller manufactured of audio gear from stellar word of mouth reputation. The gear turned out to be terrible and the owner was an awful guy to do business with. I now have a Parasound A21 that I think is great. I think John Curl gets much of the credit for being a good engineer/designer. What I learned from the long experience is this: "don’t believe all the hype about any brand or product". Often you get what you pay for and often people learn by buying much more gear than I could ever afford. I only will knock a brand if it has defects, made with inferior design or parts and sold as high-fidelity audio at high prices AND the brand owner lies about the product or does not stand behind the quality.
Here’s the thing about Emotiva. Just look at the situation with the XPR line. Any basic market research would raise red flags for a company trying to decide if they should manufacture an amp line weighing so much. Research would tell them that the logistics of shipping would be a nightmare. Damage during shipping would go way up. Shipping to other countries would be cost prohibitive.

There is a very good reason why no other amp manufacturer has amps with such high weight( maybe Mcintosh and one or two others). But Emotiva goes ahead and makes these amps and then has to cancel the line. Its just another of their bonehead moves. Nobody needs 600+ watts per channel in a home. Maybe .001% of audiophiles could actually make use of 600 watts.

Emotiva themselves recommended to customers that they use a cheater plug to connect these amps to power, because "you’ll never actually need 20 amps". My point when I heard this was if you’ll never need more than 15 amps, then you’ll never be using 600 watts, which is what they were telling you without admitting it.

If this design sounded so good, all they had to do was make it in a 250 - 400 wpc amp. When listening to music, if you are getting 95 decibels at your seating position(which is VERY loud) and your speakers are 89 db efficient(about average) then you are using maybe 10 watts, depending how far away you are from the speakers. With peaks of maybe 60 watts. Thats it folks. They made an amp that was purely for bragging rights.
I had to laugh at people's criticism of auditioning systems at shows. Here's why: I was bouncing from room to room at a fairly good show. Stuck in traffic in range of a system I really had already heard far too much of - with an unmistakable muddy swamp water crossed with sewage vibe. Turned around to make a getaway,  but it was toooo late - stuck in traffic. The salesperson saw me. She gushed on through her presentation, making a big deal about the mystery speakers. When she ground to a halt with "I'll bet you can't guess what's behind the speaker screens!" Trapped. I managed to grind out:" They sound like Bose - something I'd never have in the house.". Undeterred: (lifting the screen) "You're right! Ta daa! It's our new line of 5.1 surround speakers" (My apologies to Bose fans.)