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In Reply to: Panasonic sa xr 45, how does it work, sound, vs PS Audio posted by Tom C on January 03, 2004 at 13:01:18:
The PS Audio HCA would probably kick it's ass - I've never heard it, but it is a stereophile rated Class A.Regarding how it works though - consider the following - from a pure audiophile perspective with the HCA-2 as a power amp, here's what your system is doing - the CD player is doing a digital to analog conversion in it's housing, floating the then-analog signal to your preamp (picking up RFI on the way?), which in turn processes it and floats the then-processed analog signal to your HCA-2 via yet another set of interconnects (and more RFI? hope you have good interconnects), and then, in the HCA-2 it's converted BACK to digital. That's insane! Not to mention, add up all the costs of all those comonents, interconnects, power cords, and tweaks for every component.
Again, let's keep it in perspective - the panasonic is $300, but for me - because of the above reasoning, this is the last TYPE of amp I'll ever buy, all digital with digital inputs (hopefully someone makes a good Analog to Digital outboard). Surely PS Audio, Spectron, Solar, Tact, etc will be getting on board (some alredy are). That's not to even mention the advantages of plugging digital cable or satellite feeds directly into an all digital integrated - I'm using a digital cablefeed from my town's cable system, and am in heaven - 40 channels of digital music, all types, no commercials. Life is good.
The panasonic needs a power cord upgrade though, I got the PS Audio Xstream Statement, far more expensive than the amp. Paul of PS Audio should bundle the panasonic in with any purchase of 2 or more Xstream Statement's as a "demonstration device" - maybe he can bulk buy them at $100 each.
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