Daneel
Prominent Member
I just got this tonight and have spent around 2 hours listening. I'm running my fronts biamped through it. I've heard some say that for amps that don't use a monoblock design you are better not to do this so I will give it a go just using two channels later on.
Initial impressions are very good. I was worried that it would sound almost identical to the Parasound A23 I home demoed a while back. That was great in a lot of areas but highs were just too sharp. This surprised me as Parasound are known for their smoothness.
With the 1205A that smoothness is abound. It sits somewhere between with the Primare A30.5 and the A23, which is a very nice place to be. It is bold like the A23 but has the smooth musicallity of the Primare which is great. The cost is a little bit of detail but that is more than worth paying. With the A23 it was like a sharpening filter applied to many DVDs, it's impressive at first but in the end is not very desirable.
The improvements I saw in the previous two amps are there, more focused soundstage, much better bass response and increased clarity. It also looks better than I expected. It's pretty big, particularly in depth and seems very well built with soild binding posts, quality inputs and a strong nicely finished casing. At 21kg it isn't exactly light either. Although I never had a chance to compare it to the Rotel 1075, it's biggest opposition, I don't think I've read an opinion of someone who had and prefered the Rotel, even though it also comes highly recommended.
I can't wait to try it out in HT, it should give a significant boost, particularly for action films. It seems to have a lot of power which it delivers effortlessly.
In summary , I'm very pleased. Even Natalie Imbruglia's White Lillies Island album doesn't sound nearly as harsh as normal and that is something I very rarely find.
I'll post some more once I've had a better listen and tried some things out.
Initial impressions are very good. I was worried that it would sound almost identical to the Parasound A23 I home demoed a while back. That was great in a lot of areas but highs were just too sharp. This surprised me as Parasound are known for their smoothness.
With the 1205A that smoothness is abound. It sits somewhere between with the Primare A30.5 and the A23, which is a very nice place to be. It is bold like the A23 but has the smooth musicallity of the Primare which is great. The cost is a little bit of detail but that is more than worth paying. With the A23 it was like a sharpening filter applied to many DVDs, it's impressive at first but in the end is not very desirable.
The improvements I saw in the previous two amps are there, more focused soundstage, much better bass response and increased clarity. It also looks better than I expected. It's pretty big, particularly in depth and seems very well built with soild binding posts, quality inputs and a strong nicely finished casing. At 21kg it isn't exactly light either. Although I never had a chance to compare it to the Rotel 1075, it's biggest opposition, I don't think I've read an opinion of someone who had and prefered the Rotel, even though it also comes highly recommended.
I can't wait to try it out in HT, it should give a significant boost, particularly for action films. It seems to have a lot of power which it delivers effortlessly.
In summary , I'm very pleased. Even Natalie Imbruglia's White Lillies Island album doesn't sound nearly as harsh as normal and that is something I very rarely find.
I'll post some more once I've had a better listen and tried some things out.