Report Card: Parasound Halo D3.

[PeruvianSkies]

Got this sucker hooked up today and thought I would share some first impressions. I'll be sure to report more later, but here are some initial reactions and thoughts.

My first thing to obviously listen for was the difference between this player and my previous one, the Denon 2910. Did the D3 smoke the 2910? Actually, no. This is not a bad thing either. What this truly showed me was just how great of a player the Denon 2910 is/was. As a stand-alone CD player it did well considering it also did DVD and it costs 1/4 what the D3 costs. However, while the D3 didn't 'smoke' the pants of the 2910 it did leave it in the dust in certain areas.

Upon the first few minutes in a few recordings that I have become very familiar with I first noticed a huge improvement in bass. The bass was super tight, controlled, refined, and at the same time it was punchy, but in a good way. It was agressive, yet smooth and I quickly got excited! While the bottom end had tightened up the upper register also opened up a huge amount too making the entire soundstage about 2x the size. It was incredible!!! The highs were so sweet and detailed to the point where I didn't even have the volume turned up too much and I could really distinguish some amazing clarity that the 2910 never seemed to be able to get out.

The player itself is a beast! It's nearly 6 inches high and weighs about 16lbs. I found it very easy to setup and the menus are very easy to go through for video calibration and such. I have not really messed around much with the video aspects, but it does have menus for SACD and also choosing DVD-Video or DVD-Audio, which some players seem to lack for some reason.

It's obvious from the very few moments that this Universal player is designed by people who really truly love audio and video and are catering to the high-end customers, but also making the unit feasible enough for people that just want a all-in-one player. The player has a button on the remote that allows you to choose between PURE ANALOG, PURE DIGITAL, or PURE VIDEO. This enables the player to isolate it's internal components allowing this player to be dedicated to audio-only if you wish to use it for SACD/CD playback. This is currently how I am using this player. Again, I wll do a more detailed video review later.

I did some minor SACD playback and was also impressed with the bass-area, which always seemed to be lacking before with the 2910. The remote is very simple to use with glow-in-the-dark on select keys and you can push things just about anywhere in the room and the player responds. The disc tray is quite sturdy as well, although probably not as stiff as the 2910, but that thing took forever to eject and load discs. The D3 on the other hand fires up fairly quick and also seems to respond with better accuracy to the beginning of tracks, some players and even with the 2910 at times it never seemed to capture the first nanosecond of the recording. This is important when playing tracks without buffers like Alan Parsons Project TALES OF MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION.

The player is a bit noisier than I had expected, not that it transmits noise into the signal, but if you get up close to the player you can hear it making some sort of electronic noise, not really sure what it's doing, but this is hardly a problem for me, like I said you really have to get up close. The feet on this thing are also, like the rest of the HALO line very stable and maybe down the line I'll invest in some custom feet, but these are very suitable for now. The display on the front glows in blue and can be dimmed down about 50%, but cannot be shut offf, which might turn some people off if you are looking for a player that can be totally dark, the Denon 2910 was able to do so with the exception of a green light. I personally like it glowing!

The entire constuction of this machine is quite superb and the connections in the back are laid out very well and detailed with good quality construction and space for everything so that it's not all crammed together, I still would prefer more space on the 5.1 analog jacks, but oh well. I don't see why they all need to be grouped together so tight, especially when you have interconnects with larger locking RCA ends.

Thus far this player gets an A- in my book and I'll be sure to write more later on the other aspects of this unit. It certainly beats the Denon 2910 when it all comes down to it, it's also superior to some of the other players that I have tried from Marantz and I would say that this is better than the Music Hall Maverick player as well. I'd love to compare this player to some of the Cambridge Audio products as well as Esoteric, GamuT, and other higher-end gear.

Two final thoughts: 1. this thing looks like a receiver or amp sitting on my shelf it's that dang big. 2. today it sounded like Jack Johnson was IN MY LISTENING ROOM and the Album ON AND ON never sounded so smooth and groovy!