Theres a lot to read monkey but after this I dont think you'll look past the parasound. This story is based on the designer:
Well Well Well finally a Parasound JC2 question. I sir have one and the amp for it A21. The Parasound Halo JC 2 was designed and engineered by the legendary John Curl.
According to Parasound's president, Richard Schram, "We conceived the Halo JC 2 in the spirit of the JC 1, commissioning John Curl to design a two-channel preamplifier without compromise. The resulting product achieves a higher level of sonic and measured performance than any preamplifier since Parasound was founded in 1981. The sound of the Halo JC 2 is alive with musical detail against a silent background that will give serious audiophiles both the opportunity and desire to re-explore their music collections."
Everything he's done has led to this product, the Halo JC 2. Here is his pertinent work history, his career, in condensed form:
1975: The Levinson JC 2; by today's standards a pretty bare-bones version, but good sounding, line stage preamp. With some tweaking, a good low-budget unit for CD reproduction. Needs a free standing phono stage.
1977: Curl worked for Harmon-Kardon where he experimented with (then) new wrinkles in preamp design; symmetry in parts layout that avoids cross talk by field interactions. Parts layout proved very important, and to this day Parasound gear features these developments.
1980: Curl was interviewed by The Absolute Sound and gained more credit for his work and recognition for his innovations. Which led to -
1981: Curl began work for Denneson, a firm then specializing in Electro-Static loudspeakers. He worked on a preamp that had, among other features, an open loop design, a two-stage phono section, relay controlled (rather than wafer-style) contact switches, servo-controls, absolute polarity controls, etc. He was getting more and more sophisticated.
1983: He set up shop to build his Vendetta (phono preamp) on demand, "By appointment only." This was a very fine piece that incorporated all he had learned up to that point in the past seven or ten years. It was so good that it led to -
1985: Curl was approached by The Lineage Group, Saul Marantz as titular President. Curl designed an all-FET (Field-Effect-Transistor, as opposed to bipolar transistor) preamp for them. This piece reached the public and got mixed reviews (great sound, bad ergonomics), at a time when the country went into an economic slide.
1987: Curl set himself up as an independent manufacturer with his Vendetta. Eventually, he produced his own, boutique-level Blowtorch, a full-featured preamp in the cost-no-object category. And this led to -
1989: Curl began to work for Parasound as its design engineer. There he developed over time (among many other things) three preamps: the PLD 1000, PLD 1500, and the PLD 2000, in increasing degrees of sophistication, bringing what he'd learned over the years in the atelier to mass production.
1990: Parasound marketed the first of a long line of Curl designs to the public. These, and his work on three or four Parasound power amps, led to -
2005: Curl developed his JC 1 FET monoblocks for Parasound's Halo product line, each a 400 watt amp that received much deserved recognition from the audio critics and public, as a sweet-sounding yet very powerful solid-state amplifier.
2007: Curl developed his Halo JC 2 preamp, the tenth iteration of (what he says is) his basic design that began with the Levinson JC 2. The Halo JC 2 is a very high performer at a price that makes it very accessible to the audiophile who appreciates very high quality at a manageable price. That is not to say it is cheap. But when one considers the price/performance ratio, or bang for the buck, and the princely prices of some of the competition, it is a first-tier bargain.
What else is there to say.
If you want to know any details about this pre amp ask me and I would be more than happy to help.
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