Parasound Halo Integrated Amplifier and DAC Preview

With all the talk over the past year about immersive audio and more speaker channels, one would think that good old stereo was dead.  Well, according to the folks at Parasound, two-channel stereo is alive and kicking.  But this Parasound isn’t your traditional integrated amplifier.  Whether it’s vinyl or the latest and greatest in digital audio, the Parasound Halo Integrated Amplifier looks like it’s equipped to handle just about anything you can throw at it.  

As you might expect from Parasound, the Halo Integrated uses the same John Curl circuit topology and high current design in the A 23 and A 21 power amps. The Parasound Halo Integrated Amplifier uses the company's classic Class A/AB, DC-coupled topology with a J-FET input stage, MOSFET driver stage and high-current output stage with 12 rugged Sanken bipolar output transistors. The Halo Integrated Amp features an oversized shielded toroid power transformer and 40,000 µF filter capacity and enormous heat sinks. Because it features the same Class A/AB circuitry as in its dedicated power amplifiers, Parasound says that the Halo Integrated can drive high-end loudspeakers with ease. It can put out 160wpc into 8 ohms (RMS, both channels driven at 0.9% distortion) and 240wpc into 4 ohms (RMS both channels driven at 0.9% distortion).  Parasound says that the current capacity of the amplification section is 45 amps peak per channel.  Take this peak amp rating with a grain of salt as we've found this to be a nebulous rating manufacturers like to tout: The High Instantaneous Current Amp Spec.

Top view of the  Parasound Halo Integrated Power Supply and electronics.

But, we said before that this wasn’t your traditional integrated amplifier.  For starters, the analog preamp stage was taken verbatim from the company’s P5 stereo preamplifier.  That means that the Halo Integrated is subwoofer friendly.  The Halo Integrated Amplifier includes adjustable low pass and high pass crossovers and front panel subwoofer level control for seamless subwoofer integration.  

It’s also home theater friendly.  Its home-theater bypass input circuitry enables a surround sound receiver or processor to utilize the Halo Integrated's power amp to drive the left and right loudspeakers during surround sound listening while its subwoofer bypass inputs make it possible for subwoofer(s) to operate with surround sound and stereo listening. 

What Parasound is offering on the digital front is very impressive and shows that Parasound is serious about making the Halo Integrated a force to be reckoned with when it comes to high resolution digital audio.  For starters, the Parasound Halo Integrated Amplifier uses the latest ESS Sabre32 Reference DAC to decode a wide range of digital music files through its optical, coaxial, and USB inputs. The asynchronous USB 2.0 input really sets a new standard with support for PCM audio up to 384 kHz/32-bit, native DSD256 and DoP DSD bit streams. The coax and optical inputs accept PCM up to 192 kHz/24-bit.

Rear View of the Parasound Halo Integrated Amplifier

There’s also no shortage of input and output options.  The Halo Integrated has a balanced XLR input and XLR L, R and Sub preamp outputs. There are five line-level inputs, record/fixed level output, and a low noise MM/MC phono input with three loading options.  

The Parasound Halo Integrated Amplifier is currently available in black or silver finish with a suggested USA retail price of $2,495.

Unless otherwise indicated, this is a preview article for the featured product. A formal review may or may not follow in the future.