Parasound p-5 upgrade over onkyo p-308 ??

[Bathory]

Would this be an upgrade?  Or continue using the p-308 and save 1k$

Input is appreciated

[OldiesButGoodies]

I have owned both. I would say stock the Parasound would be an upgrade.  There are things you can do to the Onkyo to improve it but not sure it would catch up with the P-5.  Have you considered the Emotiva XPS-1? In my setup the XSP-1 beat the P-5 by a good margin in A-B listening.  And the phono section is much better in the Emo.  Just a thought...

Regards,

Pepe

[Bathory]

What can be done to the onkyo???

[OldiesButGoodies]

You can replace the op-amps (NJN4558s) with lower-noise higher-quality ones and upgrade the power supply caps  to Nichicons/similar.  That is what I did with mine, there are other mods that Eli (SunnyDaze) can speak to,  but I know what I did  improved the sound to make it less noisy and a bit less solid-statey-hard-edge sounding.

[bmwr75]

I seem to recall that Elijah (8 Watts of Fury) has left this forum.

[Sir Thrift-a-Lot]

That is true.

[OldiesButGoodies]

Yes - there was a bit of a small wave of departures from the forum earlier this year,  I think Eli is, unfortunately IMO, no longer part of the community.  He is my friend on Facebook and I do keep up with him.  He is a busy bee now that he is fully employed teaching almost day and night. 

The mod he did to the Onkyo pre involved bypassing the pc board for the phono inputs,   wiring them straight to the MM/MC switch.  He reports "livelier response".   "The PC board introduces local and global negative feedback",  he explained to me.  I did not try it myself but I trust Eli - if he heard an improvement it is probably real. 

Regards,

Pepe