Hello!
There is no keeping this one "short and sweet", and since this is my first start of a thread, I'm guessing this might be better put some where else, I just don't know where. I am looking for those who own, or who have owned, the Pass Labs XA 25. If that's you, please read on!
Quick and boring background. My experience in Hi-Fi is fairly limited, but I have always loved reading about it. I have had Sonic Frontier Power Stage 2, with at VLT 2.5 pre amp, Adcoms, BW's 603's, car audio - Arc active with Focals. I have not had a home HiFi system since my PS went bad in my SF in 2006. With the cost associated of spending what I did at the time on that SF, $2200, used, and only having it operate for maybe a year, I just about lost interest in HiFi. My Adcom amp, a 7500 I think, also went bad. These two events happend with in a few years of each other, a quick entry, a quick exit! This stuff wasn't cheap for me then. And it really isn't cheap today, either, for me. But not out of reach. Ok, so I had some bad luck, and decided to take off 13 years from Hi Fi as a result. Having never forgot that sound from the SF, but never really missing the sound from the Adcoms, I decided to explore a new option: Car Audio.
I live in an apartment, so a HiFi system always seemed a little...wasteful if you will. So, I did my research, and had a active system installed in my truck with Focal speakers. Neat! I really liked it! It's what I am using now, and it quickly reminded me of that F word: Fidelity. Could I have fidelity in my apartment? an expensive (for me) HiFi system? Or another uber expensive mistake? Good news is, I don't really hear of people having the bad luck that I did, and I'll be staying away from tubed power amps also, not for their sound, love the sound, but they can be a little difficult. I took a different approach this time. Top brands. I want one hifi system in my apartment, and I don't want to swap/switch/level up. One and done, buy once cry once. For this, I am speaking about a power amp. Other boxes may need some replacing/upgrading every few years. I don't wanna do that with the amp. And as I am building my system from the ground up, I intend to get the very best amp possible, for my needs and wants. From here, I am investing in (all used) a cambridge Azure 851n (starter pre/dac/stream), speakers unknown. I still have my VLT 2.5, and it works.
The focus here isn't to get advice on what amp to get, the XA 25 is a simple slayer. My focus here is to open up with those that own the amp. I absolutely have looked into others like Classe, Rotel, Parasound, NAD, Emotiva, etc. And I am by no means "dead set" on this XA 25. But I am getting my high end power amp duckies in a row.(SS only) Spending hours and hours reading, (not listening yet, I know I know, hold on), I have been building knowledge, pros/cons, common likes/dislikes/ characteristics, etc, of amps from all these brands (2 ch ss) that are in my budget at the highest caliber I can afford from them (new or used). So, like you might have guessed, I kinda kept reading, and just kept climbing the latter, and while I can't possible say I have an objective conclusion, Pass Labs, a brand I hadn't even been aware of a month ago, was never once placed below or marked down against any of it's competition. Apples to Apples competition that is. I know that there are plenty of other high end brands out there too, but, as I am likely to buy used, I am seeking a large online network of support and a service center. No way will I spend big money on an amp that isn't one of the big ones, for lack of a better word. Service center/customer support/online forums - they matter to me.
So putting together my mental list of amps that I'd like to hold on to for 10 plus years, and also, go have a listen when/if I can, I did notice that with a lot of the cost came quality, rave reviews from major web sites to small ones to forums, and also, high wattage. There is absolutely no way I can really justify 250W/Ch more or less. Well, then I came across the XA25. Confusion set it. Fully Class A, 25w/ch, no XLR out, $5k new. Now I have a headache. Double check, yup, it's SS. K. Time to educate my self, spending over 8 hours alone on google yesterday, I found, not a whole lot. Some of the best reviews I'v read so far, sure. But, review sites are review sites. I needed more. And I just didn't find a whole lot, only what I did, held it as the holy grail. The things I read about it that I liked was tube like sound, and over all, just a super super clean amp. Obviously, there's more to it than that, but if you have the amp, I don't need to include those details.
Seems like the output would be enough for me in my bed room. I like moderate volume. But this is where I need help from owners: Reading between the lines, it seems very few book shelf speakers will work with this amp? Here is where I spent a lot of time. What speakers pair well, what don't. I couldn't even find some of the common basics like "brighter speakers do well or don't", couldn't find many folks at all that owned this amp at all. The amp is been out about 3 years, and after it's initial release, not much at all follows. Is this amp so niche that it actually becomes impractical due to speaker pairing? Most the owners I did find were running a tube preamp, why? The XA already sounds tubeish? Others said "any klipsch". Great, so a terrific amp that is chained to one brand. Hard to see any value in that. So, the reason I am so interested in it though, it's just a super quality amp, at an affordable price for me, and I am paying for (perceivable) the sonic signature I want in a SS power amp, and also, I am not paying for way more power than I need or want. The designer claims that they can hardly keep up with demand. I have no reason to doubt him, but in contrast to what people are posting about their other Pass Labs amps, and competing amps, there just isn't a lot of individuals sharing their experience, and that makes me feel really uncertain about this amp. Otherwise, it seems like the perfect fit for me, from what I have read so far. But I need to hear more from owners.
Hello!
There is no keeping this one "short and sweet", and since this is my first start of a thread, I'm guessing this might be better put some where else, I just don't know where. I am looking for those who own, or who have owned, the Pass Labs XA 25. If that's you, please read on!
Quick and boring background. My experience in Hi-Fi is fairly limited, but I have always loved reading about it. I have had Sonic Frontier Power Stage 2, with at VLT 2.5 pre amp, Adcoms, BW's 603's, car audio - Arc active with Focals. I have not had a home HiFi system since my PS went bad in my SF in 2006. With the cost associated of spending what I did at the time on that SF, $2200, used, and only having it operate for maybe a year, I just about lost interest in HiFi. My Adcom amp, a 7500 I think, also went bad. These two events happend with in a few years of each other, a quick entry, a quick exit! This stuff wasn't cheap for me then. And it really isn't cheap today, either, for me. But not out of reach. Ok, so I had some bad luck, and decided to take off 13 years from Hi Fi as a result. Having never forgot that sound from the SF, but never really missing the sound from the Adcoms, I decided to explore a new option: Car Audio.
I live in an apartment, so a HiFi system always seemed a little...wasteful if you will. So, I did my research, and had a active system installed in my truck with Focal speakers. Neat! I really liked it! It's what I am using now, and it quickly reminded me of that F word: Fidelity. Could I have fidelity in my apartment? an expensive (for me) HiFi system? Or another uber expensive mistake? Good news is, I don't really hear of people having the bad luck that I did, and I'll be staying away from tubed power amps also, not for their sound, love the sound, but they can be a little difficult. I took a different approach this time. Top brands. I want one hifi system in my apartment, and I don't want to swap/switch/level up. One and done, buy once cry once. For this, I am speaking about a power amp. Other boxes may need some replacing/upgrading every few years. I don't wanna do that with the amp. And as I am building my system from the ground up, I intend to get the very best amp possible, for my needs and wants. From here, I am investing in (all used) a cambridge Azure 851n (starter pre/dac/stream), speakers unknown. I still have my VLT 2.5, and it works.
The focus here isn't to get advice on what amp to get, the XA 25 is a simple slayer. My focus here is to open up with those that own the amp. I absolutely have looked into others like Classe, Rotel, Parasound, NAD, Emotiva, etc. And I am by no means "dead set" on this XA 25. But I am getting my high end power amp duckies in a row.(SS only) Spending hours and hours reading, (not listening yet, I know I know, hold on), I have been building knowledge, pros/cons, common likes/dislikes/ characteristics, etc, of amps from all these brands (2 ch ss) that are in my budget at the highest caliber I can afford from them (new or used). So, like you might have guessed, I kinda kept reading, and just kept climbing the latter, and while I can't possible say I have an objective conclusion, Pass Labs, a brand I hadn't even been aware of a month ago, was never once placed below or marked down against any of it's competition. Apples to Apples competition that is. I know that there are plenty of other high end brands out there too, but, as I am likely to buy used, I am seeking a large online network of support and a service center. No way will I spend big money on an amp that isn't one of the big ones, for lack of a better word. Service center/customer support/online forums - they matter to me.
So putting together my mental list of amps that I'd like to hold on to for 10 plus years, and also, go have a listen when/if I can, I did notice that with a lot of the cost came quality, rave reviews from major web sites to small ones to forums, and also, high wattage. There is absolutely no way I can really justify 250W/Ch more or less. Well, then I came across the XA25. Confusion set it. Fully Class A, 25w/ch, no XLR out, $5k new. Now I have a headache. Double check, yup, it's SS. K. Time to educate my self, spending over 8 hours alone on google yesterday, I found, not a whole lot. Some of the best reviews I'v read so far, sure. But, review sites are review sites. I needed more. And I just didn't find a whole lot, only what I did, held it as the holy grail. The things I read about it that I liked was tube like sound, and over all, just a super super clean amp. Obviously, there's more to it than that, but if you have the amp, I don't need to include those details.
Seems like the output would be enough for me in my bed room. I like moderate volume. But this is where I need help from owners: Reading between the lines, it seems very few book shelf speakers will work with this amp? Here is where I spent a lot of time. What speakers pair well, what don't. I couldn't even find some of the common basics like "brighter speakers do well or don't", couldn't find many folks at all that owned this amp at all. The amp is been out about 3 years, and after it's initial release, not much at all follows. Is this amp so niche that it actually becomes impractical due to speaker pairing? Most the owners I did find were running a tube preamp, why? The XA already sounds tubeish? Others said "any klipsch". Great, so a terrific amp that is chained to one brand. Hard to see any value in that. So, the reason I am so interested in it though, it's just a super quality amp, at an affordable price for me, and I am paying for (perceivable) the sonic signature I want in a SS power amp, and also, I am not paying for way more power than I need or want. The designer claims that they can hardly keep up with demand. I have no reason to doubt him, but in contrast to what people are posting about their other Pass Labs amps, and competing amps, there just isn't a lot of individuals sharing their experience, and that makes me feel really uncertain about this amp. Otherwise, it seems like the perfect fit for me, from what I have read so far. But I need to hear more from owners.