ParasoundZ Amp v3 90W Two Channel Zone Amplifier

Short story: They call it a "Zone Amp" and it does the job in first-rate fashion.Bought this to drive my Zone-2 "Kitchen" in-wall speakers. Had been driving them with the Zone-2 amp of my Marantz SR-7007 AVR. Bland. Then figured I'd use an old Audiosource amp I had. Also bland. Fortunately, the Audiosource gave out with distortion and massive channel 'pop' when powering off, so I had the "opportunity to upgrade to the Zamp. So glad I did.First, all of the features that make it great for a zone amp work perfectly. The signal-sensing power-on is perfect. The adjustable gain also works well (though I have it maxed out). It's small, quiet, easily installed. Note that the photos on Amazon show that there's an auto-turn-on sensitivity knob. There isn't. It works for me as is, but it's not adjustable.But it's really the sound that makes the difference. I never thought my in-wall speakers were that good, even though I chose them carefully, and paid a fair amount. Just figured it was the compromise with in-walls. After a while, we just sort of stopped using them. This amp makes a huge difference. Perhaps it's the long cable runs to the remote speakers that made them hard to drive for the other amps I tried. But whatever it is, this amp has it completely under control. Good stereo separation, bass extension, clarity, even-handedness from low frequency to high.A small thing: the unit arrived double boxed, with the outer box being double-wall corrugated. Seriously well done for such an inexpensive (and small) amp. Says a lot about Parasound.I now find myself thinking "hey, let's listen to some music in the kitchen" which was exactly the point of putting the speakers in there in the first place. Thank you Parasound. Problem solved.

Yes, it's a Parasound. Build quality is excellent, auto-sensing is great, form factor is perfect for a lot of applications. Sounds quite good in the right situation (clean, pretty smooth high end). I've used it with a few different speakers and bottom line for me is that it works well with high-ish sensitivity 8 ohm loads. If you get into lower sensitivity speakers, it struggles. Ran it with a few different Klipsch and B&W varieties I have on hand, and it did fine. But running a pair of PMC Twenty.21s was more of challenge. For the real test, I connected a pair of Totem Model 1 Signatures, which are 4 ohm and really like current. Unfortunately, this was not a good pairing for the Z Amp, which left the Totems sounding very thin. It just couldn't provide the low end grip these speakers need. The 4 ohm spec for this amp is 60W vs 45W at 8 ohm. So you're getting 1.3x at a 4 ohm load and that isn't enough juice for some speakers. Not surprising, really, but worth noting in case you were planning on something similar.I see perfect use as zone 2 or whole home audio applications. I am using it for back surround speakers in my home theater and it is great for that. I will probably pick up another for the patio outdoor speakers this spring and perhaps a third for Atmos when I do that upgrade.Happy listening!

I have a two of these Zamps. One powering a pair of Energy tower speakers and another powering a pair of in ceiling speakers in the kitchen. It is a very good sounding amp. I originally upgraded from a "100 Watt" Onkyo receiver. This amp blows it away. If you consider the fact that it is only about 9" wide it is truly amazing. This amp is not a "basic" amp with standard components and design. It is a completely discrete design with expensive high end output transistors. One reviewer on amazon commented on the output transistor type being cheap T022 type and not T03. T03 type were common back in the 1970s. No modern audiophile amp uses T03 transistors anymore. Check out Wikipedia on TO3 package, T03 was designed in 1955 for use with vacuum tubes. This same reviewer seemed to diss the transformer. The zamp uses a true toroid transformer. It is the same type you find in amps that typically cost much much more.In regards to a couple other complaints about a turn on thump and low gain. The thump was only present on older Zamps from a few years ago. I know this because I have both new and older versions. The newer version also increased the gain. I confirmed both of these with a call to Parasound Tech department.I highly recommend this amp to anyone who wants a great sounding amp in a small package. Parasound makes a whole bunch of components in this line in silver and black.

The only reason that I looked into this amp is its small size. My small rack place has already jammed with other equipment, and i truly do not have place for 200w amp anymore. This is the background I came to this amp.After I read lots of raved reviews about this amp, I hoped that this amp at least can handle my ceiling speaker. But it can not. it is true that this amp provides very clean and pure sound, but it lacks headroom due to poor low bass presence. I think that it can not drive 8 inch tweeter or beyond properly with decent base. 5 or 6 inch is its limit.In fact I did not plan to use it for something major, just a BW 8 inch ceiling speaker in the bridged mode. I compared it with one BW ceiling speaker VS middle level Luxman M2 of 1980s (about 120w/8 o) on another BW ceiling speaker. Parasound is flat and no dimension due to lack of bass, though the middle and high are similar to Luxman. I did not talk about subtle differences between two amps, because the difference is so obvious.After I switched the two amps to power to a pair of 5 inch JBL control 1 speakers, then the results of two become similar, at least you need really seat down to tell the differences after some time.All my comparison is based on the bridge mode of this amp. The bridge mode of this amp certainly bring this amp to another level.so, this amp is what it is, I should not complain from this small cute amp at this price range. but I just want to say that there is no miracle! (because many online reviews tried to portrait this amp as one. )

Had to give zero stars for 'sheerness' and 'warmth.' It's a power amp, not a curtain and definitely not a space heater... After 30 years of continuous use the power amp driving my home theater subwoofers finally released its magick smoke. This is rated at 60W/channel into 4 Ohms (45 into 8) which is plenty for 2 15" subs in a 15x30 room. It has an auto-power-off feature which is nice -- it runs at standby power when not in use, switches on within about a second when it sees input, unlike my old one that ran at idle 24x7x365. It is a POWER AMP so there is no volume control -- it is designed to run downstream of a preamp with volume controls, such as my AV amp. Clean, solid power in a small package.