[meech]

Hey guys, need your opinion.

By the way this is a stereo question not a headphone question.

I recently purchased a 200 watt Parasound Amp to power my Klipsch reference speakers.

My speaker cables are monster M2.4.
This particular amp has a left & right volume control on the back so I decided to hook it up directly to my cd player via Audioquest Anacondas. My cd player is a Sony 400 disc player (real high end stuff here).

It took about 5 minutes to adjust to the sound. I usually listen to my speakers through my Sony ES Receiver. At first, I thought I was losing a lot of detail. Then I realized that all the detail WAS there, but it just wasn't screaming at me the way I was used to hearing it. It was that WARM sound that I always hear all the GAWDIOPHILES talk about.

What I did notice that I didn't particularly like was that fact that when the orchestra got loud, instruments became smeared. I didn't notice this during quiet sections, only when it got a little busy. Unfortunately, I haven't had enough experience with high end audio equipment to determine which piece could be the cause of my problem. I'd like to think that it's my cd player that's causing this congestion since it is the cheapest link in the chain.

I'd like your opinions on what you think is the link that needs to be replaced.

 

[bozebuttons]

Looks like your Cd player may be the culprit. Your cables are good. The one thing I don't know is the Quality of the volume controls in the parasound amp. If they are passive your dynamics will suffer. and output from your cd player becomes a big factor. If you know someone that has a preamp that you could try in your system bypassing the volume controls of the amp I would suggest trying that first.

 

[David D.]

It might be that the "Volume" controls on the back of your new Parasound power amp are "Gain" controls (most likely of the passive kind, active Gain controls are pretty rare). Such power amps are meant to be used with preamps.
It, very likely, can be that the output stage of the CD Player cant "drive" the poweramps input properly, resulting in not satisfiying sound.
Are you using the "Fixed" or "Variable" CD outputs? You can try both "ways". Set the "Volume/Gain" on some (experiment a bit) "level" and use the "Variable" CD output to or use the "Fixed"
CD Player output and regulate the volume on the power amp. If no way brings a satisfactory result you propably need a (active)preamp. Your cables are of very high quality so they aren't to blame.
Hope this helps.

Cheers!

 

[pigmode]

I'm running about 1.5w...