Parasound Halo Integrated vs Yamaha AS2100

You might want to check out newrecordday. I think he has reviewed both.

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 have own both of them and I prefer the as2100 over the halo ,the Yamaha is better in sound and build quality but you can’t go wrong with either one of them !

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.