Parasound Halo Integrated vs Yamaha AS2100

I have extensive experience with the Yamaha A-S1100 and own the Parasound Halo integrated. Both amps were extensively compared in my system with the same components and recordings.

My conclusion was that both are very good. The Yamaha is slightly more natural sounding with strings and piano. It also has a leaner tonal balance. The Halo gives more "body" and heft to the music, but is very neutral. They are equal in detail retrieval and soundstage, but the Halo doesn't make an exhibition of its detail capability, its "sneaky." The Yamaha has a lower noise floor but it also strains more easily, and in some recordings, the  Yamaha's treble can be slightly grainy. This is also the case with the much cheaper A-S500.

 It takes a lot to strain the Halo and it's very clean under demanding loads. I must admit the Halo DAC and phono stage are overrated. Both are competent but nothing to write home about. For me, the Halo was the better all around amp, especially when factoring in the ~$2100 street price. 

I wouldn't sell the Yamaha short. It can easily come down to personal preference and whether you need the DAC in the Halo. If someone is using Maggies, then the Halo is a no-brainer. The build quality of the Yamaha is better in terms of casework, binding posts, and input jacks. If I listened to mostly strings, piano, light jazz and such, the Yamaha would be my preference.

The Parasound is the warmer amp, at least compared to the A-S1100 (A-S2100 sans balanced inputs?) 

The New Record Day guy has reviewed both and claims the Yamaha is a better amp, but I think he was likely going off memory of the Parasound. I personally find back to back comparisons yield a more accurate comparison. I compared the A-S1100 to the Halo back to back, listening to each amp in the system for a whole day before switching. I did this for a week. The A-S2100 might be considerably better than the A-S1100, but i doubt that. I wanted to like the Yamaha more due to its aesthetics, but in the end, the Parasound had "more meat on the bones" without sacrifice to clarity, dynamics or soundstage.

I ended up with an A-S1100 after all. I noticed I was suffering fatigue anytime I listened to Halo for about an hour or more, which never happened with my A-S500. So I bought another 1100 and all has been well. Now that the amp has broke-in, I couldn’t be more satisfied. The second time I compared it to the Halo, i did notice a larger soundstage and greater instrument separation with the Yamaha. The Halo still had a meatier sound, only slightly, but was still fatiguing for whatever reason - maybe something drifted out of spec.

The fatigue is puzzling. I had the Halo playing Maggie 1.7I for hours always sounded great, even my classically trained musician friend would listen and express amazement at how good it sounded.

Very puzzling. It made no sense because the Halo is really quite a smooth amp, even smoother than the Yamaha. I also had Maggie 1.7is with the Halo for a while. 

I can only guess it may have had something to do with the noise floor - it always produced a low-level buzz through the speakers, something the Yamaha doesn't suffer from. I believe they claim to have lowered the noise floor with the Hint 6. 

You guys don’t know your audio ,the Newer 2100 series Mosfets amps are for sure warmer then the parasound halo integrated and more natural

I actually agree with you (at least the 1100 vs Halo integrated) but my experience was that the Yamahas are not warmer in the obvious sense, only that they're less fatiguing during extended listening. Yamahas have a saturated tonal palette compared to Parasound, not unlike comparing a Wharfedale speaker to a Focal, but in this analogy the Wharfedale (the Yamaha) produces more detail. 

Parasound is a meatier sound though.