Parasound AVC-2500
A surround preamp/tuner that does the calibration math for you - and leaves the cathedral presets to the tasteless.
Overview
The AVC-2500 packs a surround processor, a dual-zone preamplifier, a D/A converter, and an AM/FM tuner with 20 presets into one 16-pound chassis. List price was $3,295. That's real money for a tuner/preamp, but the engineering inside accounts for it. Matti Otala led the design project, and the circuitry runs three Motorola 56009 24-bit processors on four-layer, military-spec boards with discrete analog line stages.
The big convenience is the automatic setup. Unpack the supplied calibrated microphone, set it at the listening position, press a few buttons on the remote, and the 2500 adjusts its own channel levels and delays. No sound-pressure meter, no tape measure, no delay-time charts. Audio (January 2000, p.90) found the automatic settings proved as accurate as measurements taken with a professional sound level meter, a tape measure, and detailed delay charts.
The processing list is broad for its day: Dolby Digital, DTS, Dolby Pro Logic, and Home THX Ultra. There is also a music mode that adds surround ambience to any source, and a "party" mode that downmixes to stereo and feeds the main and surround speakers. Owners tend to either love that restraint or wish for a little more fiddling room.
Connectivity is where the 2500 earns its keep in a modern (for its era) system. There are six analog and eight digital audio inputs, with the digital side split into one AES/EBU (balanced), four coaxial, and two Toslink jacks, plus a multipin connector for an optional $180 RF demodulator for laserdisc players with Dolby Digital outputs. Analog and digital tape outputs are provided in both coax and Toslink form, and every digital signal is available from those outputs regardless of its original format — which makes dubbing from a coax-equipped CD player to an optical MiniDisc recorder a simple cable swap. Six A/V inputs carry composite and S-video, and there are two component-video inputs and two monitor outputs (one with on-screen display, one without). A 5.1-channel analog bypass input accepts surround from DVD-Audio or SACD players with multichannel analog outputs, and an RS-232 port allows new software to be loaded — a touch of upgradability that mattered in an era of format wars.
The ergonomics are a mixed bag. The source selectors are generically labeled "Video 1" or "Audio 1," and the buttons can't be renamed to match the names programmed into the preamp itself, so visitors will guess. The reviewer's grade for the control interface landed somewhere around a C+ or B.
On the bench, the preamp section measured well. Frequency response without THX processing was flat within +0, -0.15 dB on the worst channel, with all channels matching within 0.25 dB. A-weighted noise came in at -88 dB in the subwoofer channel and -91 dB in the others. Worst-case crosstalk fell from about -90 dB at 20 Hz to about -105 dB at 40 Hz before rising to -58 dB at 20 kHz. THD for analog inputs topped out around 0.14% at 20 Hz and dropped to roughly 0.005% or less from 100 Hz up. That's a touch above average at the bottom, though speakers generate so much distortion down there that it's effectively inaudible. The 5.1-channel bypass skips nearly everything in the preamp, including the gain control, and measured around 0.0003%. That's close enough to a straight wire that the graph's scale had to be extended to show it. The DAC stayed linear within about ±1 dB from 0 to -100 dBFS, deviating to 4.8 dB at -108 dBFS and nearly 11 dB at -115 dBFS.
The sound is clean and transparent, with a bit more upper-midrange and treble energy than much of the competition. That reads as detail and dynamics on good material and as mercilessness on bright or closely miked recordings. There are no tone controls, equalizers, or filters for stereo music, so there's no way to soften a hard recording. Audio (January 2000, p.95) recommended pairing the 2500 with cables that don't add edge, and suggested the THX re-equalization setting for most movie soundtracks. Video performance was judged very good for the money. Composite and S-video held up well against far pricier processors at normal viewing distances, though the most expensive direct-view monitors and projection systems would reveal slight differences.
The AVC-2500 belongs to an era of fast-moving surround formats, and its processing is fixed to what shipped, plus whatever the RS-232 port can still accept. It's not a component to buy for future-proofing. It's one to buy because the tuner, preamp, DAC, and surround processing are all good and the auto-calibration still works. Used prices reflect that, which makes it an affordable way into Otala-designed Parasound engineering. Confirm the remote and calibration mic are included before buying.
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