Parasound HCA-1000A Modifications


I recently completed some modifications to my Parasound HCA-1000A a few weeks ago, and HOLY COW!!! Now my $300 amplifier sounds like I spent easily 10 times that amount. It's amazing what can be done with a stock amplifier--especially one as good as the HCA-1000A.

Anyway, my question is this: I am thinking about writing a manual about modifying the HCA-1000A and offering it for a small fee--maybe even putting together a "kit" containing the manual and all necessary parts. Would anybody out there be interested in such a manual or kit, or should I not waste my time?
avilex

Showing 3 responses by johnss

I think there may be a limited market for this. I agree, I have modified a number of Parasound amps including the 1000a.
Very nice sounding amp modified. I replaced over 30 parts on the main board, added new soft recovery bridges, etc.

One gets similar results on the 2200II and 3500 amps; have not tried the new JC1s or other series.

JOhn

@south43 , was not an amp I did. I did not use solen caps. Have to be careful with the solens, they can end up sounding lean and thin in the midrange. 

The pots are not the weak point, run the pots wide open and they are mostly out of the circuit. One of the weak points are all of the cheap film caps used through out the amp. The other is the off brand lytics that were used. These amps are old enough a general cap refresh would not hurt.

And you can go nuts with Vishay resistors replacing every resistor in the signal path. Also depends on how good your source and preamp are. If not up to the task then you may not hear much of a dif. 

At the end of the day you can dump 500 bucks or more into vishay resistors and other parts but you'll still have a 200 dollar amp. Once you know what parts do, no need to test, did that on the first one. There is no resistor on the planet that sounds better than a Vishay, but they are not cheap. Expect to pay 12 to 25 dollars per resistor vs. 69 cents for many metal films.