For years many audiophiles have floated the misguided notion that traditional two-channel audio and home theater couldn’t co-exist in the same home A/V system.

Helping to pull those lost audiophiles from the dark ages are companies like Parasound. The San Fransisco-based audio/video manufacturer recently introduced a new version of its Halo JC 2 preamplifier that it’s calling the JC 2 BP.

The new JC 2 BP adds a home theater bypass function to allow custom electronics pros to offer their audiophile clients a versatile A/V entertainment solution and high-performance music system all in one package.

Parasound was able to implement the home theater bypass function by adding a modified potentiometer board, as well as fixed resistors that set the outputs to a unity gain when the bypass is engaged.

The company says that any one or more of the preamp’s inputs, which includes its two balanced (XLR) inputs can be assigned to the bypass, and front panel, amber-colored LEDs indicate when an input is being used with the bypass mode.

Parasound is also offering dealers the opportunities to retrofit their clients’ existing JC 2s (which go for $4,000) with the bypass feature for $500.

Robert Archer - Senior Editor, CE Pro

Bob is a dedicated audiophile who has been writing about A/V for Electronic House sister publication CE Pro since 2000.