Recommend Class a Amp

Dave, no I would not call the JC1 nor any $4000 amp mass market or even close to "semi-mass market." To do so would be to not understand the big picture of the market. Personally, I would call Sony mass market. And Marantz, Yamaha, Peachtree as semi-mass market (they try to cater to the masses who want something better than average, but yet they still distribute their products via mass market big-box retail channels). In the big picture Parasound (and especially their Halo line) are 'high end' or boutique or whatever you wanna call it.

Abrew19, and 99.7% of the people in the world would agree with new.
It really dawned on me recently how nutso this hobby has become when I saw an ad in one of the mags for a phono
cartridge whose bold headline was" And only $5999.00" .

Ahh, YOU not new

My sense is that people think the JC1's are good, but less good than Pass monoblocks - and so they get overshadowed a bit.

Ok, Abrew, I see your point. Personally, I'm not going by price but by performance. And to me and other audiophiles, most of Parasound, minus the Halos I suppose, is upper mid-fi. Again, I'd love to hear how they compare to Pass Labs and even higher end stuff.