This is a review and detailed measurements of Parasound 200 Pre DAC, Preamplifier and Phono Stage. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $895.
I absolutely love this combination of features and Parasound delivers it in a rather attractive package:
The input selector can be pushed to then adjust bass, treble, and balance. On the back side you can see the rich feature set for the custom integrators where this product is targeted:
Lots of controls and even such features as sub output.
For my testing, I choose to test the DAC, pre-amplifier and phono stage each enough to get good understanding of the performance of said subsystem.
Parasound 200 Pre DAC Measurements
I plugged in the UBS cable and ran our usual dashboard:
The rather high distortion causes ranking to be pretty low among all DACs tested:
Fortunately noise level is good:
IMD test shows that the output saturates early causing that distortion:
I think we know the story of the DAC. Let's move on.
Preamplifier Measurements
Here is our performance with 2 volts in/2 volts out:
Sadly it is as bad as digital input. Maybe this is the problem and not the DAC. Noise performance is much better though:
Frequency response is flat enough:
Phono Stage Measurements
Line input 1 can be selected to be either MM or MC phono preamp. I went with the former:
This is another disappointing result. Usually I like to see no distortion spikes above noise floor but we have a few here. That knocks down our overall SINAD to lower tiers:
Frequency response is not bad but I like to see the RIAA compensation to be better and matched between the channels:
Finally, there is little headroom available so pops and clicks are liable to be quite a bit louder than they would be otherwise:
Conclusions
Parasound has a very nice package of features in the 200 Pre. Alas, the performance targets are quite low by our standards. For its intended custom install market, it is perfectly fine. But if you aspire the best, you have to look elsewhere.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Every year I plant a few eggplants. Never get enough to do much with it. This year I went all out and planed a bunch over heirloom varieties and more of them. Got a great harvest which we already used to make eggplant parmigiana and my favorite Chinese eggplant stir-fry. Yum! Here is what is still left to cook besides what is in the garden:
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
I absolutely love this combination of features and Parasound delivers it in a rather attractive package:
The input selector can be pushed to then adjust bass, treble, and balance. On the back side you can see the rich feature set for the custom integrators where this product is targeted:
Lots of controls and even such features as sub output.
For my testing, I choose to test the DAC, pre-amplifier and phono stage each enough to get good understanding of the performance of said subsystem.
Parasound 200 Pre DAC Measurements
I plugged in the UBS cable and ran our usual dashboard:
The rather high distortion causes ranking to be pretty low among all DACs tested:
Fortunately noise level is good:
IMD test shows that the output saturates early causing that distortion:
I think we know the story of the DAC. Let's move on.
Preamplifier Measurements
Here is our performance with 2 volts in/2 volts out:
Sadly it is as bad as digital input. Maybe this is the problem and not the DAC. Noise performance is much better though:
Frequency response is flat enough:
Phono Stage Measurements
Line input 1 can be selected to be either MM or MC phono preamp. I went with the former:
This is another disappointing result. Usually I like to see no distortion spikes above noise floor but we have a few here. That knocks down our overall SINAD to lower tiers:
Frequency response is not bad but I like to see the RIAA compensation to be better and matched between the channels:
Finally, there is little headroom available so pops and clicks are liable to be quite a bit louder than they would be otherwise:
Conclusions
Parasound has a very nice package of features in the 200 Pre. Alas, the performance targets are quite low by our standards. For its intended custom install market, it is perfectly fine. But if you aspire the best, you have to look elsewhere.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Every year I plant a few eggplants. Never get enough to do much with it. This year I went all out and planed a bunch over heirloom varieties and more of them. Got a great harvest which we already used to make eggplant parmigiana and my favorite Chinese eggplant stir-fry. Yum! Here is what is still left to cook besides what is in the garden:
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/