Halo CD 1

About the Halo CD 1

The Parasound Halo CD 1 is a high-end Red Book CD player and CD transport with an integrated Analog Devices AD1853 DAC. Its slot-loading CD-ROM drive reads discs at four times normal speed, while Holm Acoustics processing uses repeated reads, buffering, and error correction to reduce read errors and jitter. The player upsamples 44.1 kHz CD data to 352.8 kHz using 8x interpolation. It provides selectable analog output stages, including a low-noise op-amp stage and a discrete transistor stage, along with balanced XLR and unbalanced RCA analog outputs. Digital outputs are provided through BNC, coaxial, and optical connectors, allowing use with an external DAC. The extensively shielded aluminum chassis incorporates separate power supplies for the analog and digital sections. The Halo CD 1 is a CD player, not a general-purpose DAC: it has no digital inputs.