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New (for me) Halo A23 and P3!!!

Flint

Flint

Prodigal Son
Superstar
As most of you have probably figured out, I scan Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace often for any killer deals I might be interested in. Last week I came across a guy selling his Parasound Halo A23 amplifier and P3 preamplifier. Since I am working on an upgrade for my main system speakers, I have been shopping for amps, so I made an offer - thinking I would replace my family room preamp (Parasound 2100) with the Halo P3.

I made an offer and he rejected it outright. I pointed out that craigslist is about haggling over price but politely walked away after letting him know I still want the gear if he is willing to come down on the price. Yesterday I noticed they were still on Craigslist, so I boldly made an offer for the Halo A23 amp alone at a price I felt was appropriate for a Craigslist deal. He rejected that as well. I politely told him I would buy it if he would be willing to come down more than he was asking.

Then, today, he reached out and accepted my initial offer, which was less than I was willing to pay. Huh! So, I ran over and picked up the gear before he came to his senses.

His reasoning was that his new speakers arrived and they definitely sounded better with his Jolida integrated amplifier than with the Halo rig, and he was thinking of buying a tube amp. I suddenly got excited to see his speakers which justified a good tube amp which would be better than a Jolida integrated amp.

At his place he demoed the Halo rig (to prove they worked) and I saw and heard his speakers. They were okay, but definitely not on par with his electronics. I will find out what brand and models they are, but they lacked definition and had a strange midrange tonality to me ears when listening to music I was familiar with. Here's a photo of his rig:

AustinAudiophile_HaloSeller_May2018.jpg

The taller speakers are Pol Audio. On the side of the room was a pair of Klipsch Reference towers.

Really, this guy really thought the electronics made all the difference and was looking to spend over $1,000 on a new tube power amp. I didn't contradict him, but I did recommend the Tripplite IsoBar power strips because I heard a slight buzz when his refrigerator kicked on.

The screaming deal? I got both the Parasound Halo A23 and P3 for $700.

Now I am selling my Parasound 2100 Stereo Preamp. You can see it listed in the classified section soon.
 
So which ones were his new speakers? Those Polks look like either LSiM 705s or LSiM 707s. I have a pair of if their stand mount counterpart LSiM 703s in my office rig. They're ok sounding and have a really have a nice fit and finish (if you're into that kind of thing). I definitely would not spend $1k to power them though.
 
Okay.... He got back to me with the speaker models, and I am not ashamed for not recognizing the name:

The brand is Tekton Design and the speakers are the Enzo:
http://www.tektondesign.com/enzo-original.html

Like I said, they didn't sound terrible, but the midrange was funky, and the treble (as expected) was very narrowly focused in the vertical plane.
 
So the vast majority of the posts on Craigslist are junk I'd never touch in a million years. However, scanning the site almost daily turns up about one in a hundred or so items I would own and about one in a thousand items I actually attempt to buy. Like any secondary market shopping, it takes patience and consistent hunting to find something good.

In the case of these Parasound Halo products, I looked over about 6 pages of Craigslist ads before I saw them.
 
Those are decent speakers. I remember listening to them as we passed them around the forum members.
 
Razz said:
So how's the "new" P3 compared to your "2100"? What difference can you notice?
Click to expand...

Okay... a quick review:
  1. It looks way better. Something about the glowing red "P" logo on the silver faceplate is just sexy to me and it makes me feel good.
  2. Switching between inputs is dead silent, almost disturbingly so. With the 2100 every time I changed the input there would be a very subtle thud which I grew to rely on as confirmation I actually switched inputs and didn't point the remote properly. With the P3, there is no sound or click or anything alerting me to the changed input. The LED screen is small enough and far enough away that I cannot easily see that the input has changed. So... it is both a sensation of quality (total silence) and annoyance (I cannot easily tell the input has changed until I don't hear what I expected to hear).
  3. The unit is quiet - like in every way. The hiss from my speakers is lower, the phono preamp is quieter, and the stuff I mentioned above all make it seem like a better unit.
  4. Overall stereo listening is pretty much the same, but I am quite certain the P3 makes me smarter, sexier, and more desirable to the hot chicks who frequent my bachelor pad.
 
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