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Review 2 of 8
Price Paid:
$500.00
from HiFi Sales Summary:
The PLD-1100 is a great pre-amp - the first time I used it, I threw some Ronin Hardaman into my CD player and was blown away by the sound quality - it literally brought tears to my eyes. I was running it with the Parasound HCA-1000A, and was just blown away by the dimensionality and alive-ness it brought to the music. I'm also impressed by the build - both the pld-1100 and hca-1000a amp are built with very high quality - definitely the best build out of all the electronic equipment I own. Parasound obviously stands behind their work with an impressive 10-yr warranty.
Here's the problem - the PLD-1100 sounds spectacular with some of the music I own, and not-so-good with other music. I can't lay all of the blame on the pre-amp, because I know that much of it may deal with my speakers, apt. size, and other factors. However, the PLD-1100 suffers when it comes to delivering solid bass. I demo'd the product at the stereo shop and noticed it would give an accurate portrayal of a recording, meaning it will reproduce a recording based on the way it was mixed - ultimately the way it stands on the medium (CD, vinyl, etc.). This can be good and bad - obviously the PLD-1100 is a quality product with spectacular sound, but based on my particular arrangement - small apartment, speakers, the PLD-1100 didn't allow me to make adjustments to the lower end of the signal. I didn't think this would be a problem because I have a pair of higher-end JBL's with powered subs, so I thought, no-problem, I'll just crank the volume on the subs if the very bottom is missing. Problem is, there's a lot of bass that falls above the sub crossover level within the signal that I wasn't able to amplify with my subs, and unfortunately for the PLD-1100, there's no adjustable EQ to bring up the lower-end in situations such as this. This Pre-amp is a thing of beauty already, but could be improved by providing bass/treble EQ controls so as to tune the signal to your particular room arrangement and/or aesthetic tastes. Because of this, I give the 1100 4 stars instead of 5. If you like your music with a lot of good, solid, bass, and are worried that you may need to filter or boost the bottom end, this pre-amp is not for you. Additionally, there's no loudness feature so that the bottom end drops out almost completely when playing music at very low levels. If you're not a bass maniac and enjoy music faithfully reproduced as it was originally mixed in the studio, then this is a great preamp.
The best thing you can do is demo it at home and see if it works, because unlike other pre-amps, this baby is non-adjustable - not in the least. What you see is what you get. I have no doubt it'll sound awesome in some settings, but for me, it was anemic on the bottom-end at times, which ultimately led to my dissatisfaction. I know you should give products time to break-in, but I don't think more of a break-in period would've helped this problem. By the way, I was using high-end Ultralink stereo cable and good speakers, so I know most of the blame is with the pre-amp. I'll be bringing the PLD-1100 back to the store tomorrow - too bad, I was really hoping that it would've worked out. Sometimes breaking up is hard to do.
Strengths:
Solid build, great warranty, good sound Weaknesses:
No EQ, bass not as strong and drops out at low volume levels, not enough preouts.
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4.5 of 5
5 of 5
4 of 5
