Parasound Halo CD 1 Player It Wore Blue Velvet

As I dislodge the packing material from the shipping box containing the Parasound CD 1, it’s easy to have a positive first impression of the flagship of the Halo product line.  I set aside the cardboard and Styrofoam layers to find the player carefully wrapped in a bag of blue velvet.  I can’t help but recall the lyrics that Bobby Vinton made famous:  “She wore blue velvet.”

Physically, the CD player complements the Parasound Halo product series.  As one might expect from name of the collection to which it belongs, the CD 1 sports blue LEDs that cast lighted halos around the buttons flanking the red power indicator in the center of the player’s faceplate.  The CD 1 is built from the ground up to play only Red Book CDs and CD-Rs, plus the standard CD layer on SACDs.  I have to admit that my own digital collection is about 95 percent Red Book CDs, but I prefer to have the ability to play SACDs or DVD-As without needing a second player.

Users have a few options in the unit’s setup menu.  One function worth noting is the “CD eject” option.  The default is to eject a disc when the unit is powered off, but overriding this is a good idea if the player is behind a cabinet door with limited clearance.

The provided Halo remote facilitates access to common features, many of which apply to the CD 1 only, while the others apply to the Halo JC 2 or P 7 preamplifer.  The remote allows users to select a CD track by number, or by the forward or back buttons.  Fast-forward and fast-reverse are also nice touches, should you want to relive a particularly striking musical passage.  The remote also offers a polarity switcher for phase matching as well as a display dimmer.  While the remote has very accessible and practical functionality, it’s very utilitarian and made of a light, somewhat flimsy-feeling plastic.  For a unit of this build quality and price point, I’d prefer to see a more elegant metal remote.

Ours a [CD] I held tightly

Connecting the unit is simple and flexible.  The CD 1 offers both RCA and balanced XLR analog outputs, as well as three digital output options—BNC, coax and optical—for those who might want to use it as a transport.  The Halo’s software takes 20 seconds to load before it’s ready to play a disc.  When the desire for a music fix strikes, this boot-up time feels much longer.

The CD 1 is a slot-loading player, and discs require a fair amount of pushing before the player decides to accept them.  When about an inch of the disc remains outside the player, the CD is sucked in with startling grip and speed.  Once the CD disappears, the player ponders for 10 seconds while evaluating the disc’s contents, and then plays the first track automatically—giving you just enough time to reach the listening chair and catch the first few notes of the song. While it’s pondering, the CD 1 is actually buffering the first 30 seconds of disc data, helping to reduce the error correction associated with a more traditional CD player.  The end result – a less digital, less fatiguing sound.

As I sit down for my first listen, I notice that the display is too small to see any information from my listening position.  This isn’t too much of an issue if you’re familiar with the disc being played, but if you’re not so familiar with the material you might need to use binoculars, or wait for the chorus, to determine which track you are hearing.

Warmer than May Her Tender Sighs

Any quibbles with the user experience quickly fade from mind once this player starts singing.  For analog playback, the Parasound offers a toggled choice of discrete or op-amp analog outputs.  In the discrete setting, the sound is produced from the transistor output stage.  In the op-amp setting, the signal is sent directly from the op-amp output stage.  The different options impart subtle changes to the overall sonic signature.  While the settings are similar, the op-amp setting lends a bit warmer feel, with a slightly more relaxed presentation; the discrete setting offers a bit more perceived detail, but on poor recordings this sonic edge proves more obvious.  Experimentation for your own preference on each disc is encouraged and there is no right answer, so it’s great to have both options.

Music from this player sounds smooth and natural, with all the nuance and subtlety one could hope to coax from a CD.  Bass, mids and highs complement each other wonderfully, and no particular region of the audio spectrum appears to stand out from the others.

I seek out my best CD source material to put the CD 1 though its paces, and Mobile Fidelity recordings prove a great starting point for evaluation.  It’s exciting to experience the player’s portrayal of Beck’s Sea Change on the MoFi disc.  The triangle strike in “Lonesome Tears” offers a beautiful, natural-sounding ring and very long decay rivaling the best I’ve experienced.  Beck’s vocals are equally beguiling as the lyrics and emotion spill from his voice.  The Parasound does a stupendous job of layering front-to-back musical elements, even when they may overlap in the perceived left-to-right stereo image.

During “On the Run,” from Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon (MoFi), it’s easy to pick out a man panting and running from right to left, as well as his 90-degree turn to run away from the microphone, thereby fading into the background.  “Us and Them” offers a similar experience, as gentle echoes pan and spiral around the perceived source of David Gilmour’s vocals in the center.

Madonna’s “Candy Perfume Girl” starts with a synthesized, pinpoint sound bouncing left and right.  The CD 1 manages to put that element in front of the speakers, rather than being recessed between or behind them.  I have not experienced this effect to the same degree with very many pieces of equipment.

“Song for Olabi,” from Quiet Letters by Bliss, combines vocals with drums, shakers, rain sticks, flutes and synthesized notes.   Not only does the CD 1 present these instruments with sound that is surprisingly organic, but it also places them on the stage so that a front-row listener can both hear the instrument and visualize it.  I find myself looking for a musician “behind” the person at the front of the stage holding the shaker.  While many pieces of audio equipment tend to blur and compress sonic elements together into a more two-dimensional space, the CD 1 stitches together all the subtle sonic queues in a recording to extend and separate the musical experience into three dimensions.

On Dirty Martini’s “House on Fire,” the CD 1 renders the glockenspiel with more realism than I have heard in a recording.  Okay, there aren’t a lot of songs in my collection that include glockenspiel, but you get my point; the delicacy and decay of the notes sound both lively and lifelike.

Lower quality CDs, like Sisters of Mercy’s First and Last and Always, proves a little bright-edged, as I’d expect, but the Parasound still manages to encourage the vocals to come closer to the front of the soundstage, instead of being recessed within the mix.  The CD 1 does not sugarcoat the CD experience, but it does make the most of the material provided.

As a transport, this player offers equally stellar experiences.  It manages to chisel out each and every digital bit on the CD before sending it to an outboard DAC.  Several experiments confirm the capability of the DAC within the CD 1, proving itself competitive with my reference digital processing gear in many ways, though the musical presentation is not quite as wide with the CD 1.  I find myself wishing the Parasound included a digital input to allow experimentation with its interpretation of other digital sources, like a computer.  But for those needing only CD functionality, this player is sublime.

In My Heart There’ll Always be…a Memory

At $4,500, the Parasound CD 1 is a significant financial commitment for a device that plays only Red Book CDs.  At the same time, the sonic portrayal of music is every bit as good as many transport plus DAC combinations I’ve heard over the years.  The discrete and op-amp settings provide the ability to do some sonic tailoring to match your system—and being able to switch on the fly is a bit like having two CD players in one.  For those in the market for a dedicated CD player in this price range, the Parasound CD 1 offers exceptional sound and a very rewarding musical experience.

Parasound Halo CD 1 Player

MSRP: $4,500

Manufacturer       www.parasound.com

Peripherals