As "Aldavis" points out, size and heat indeed. At 145 lbs and 16 power tubes each, with a conservatively rated 150w Class A, the CAT JL-3 monos do a wonderful job doubling as floor heaters.
Chuck, I was under the impression that some particular examples of the Aleph amps with minimal gain stages were unable to double down, but, all the other Pass amps were able to double down. I would guess that those which could/can doube down would halve their class A out-put as they did so.
As I understand it (from information gathered from the pass web site) the X series (class A/B) does double down but the XA (pure class A) does not. And as someone mentioned class A amps tend to be sweeter more detailed in the midrange.
Hi Chuck, thanks for the update. I went to the Pass site. I didn't see anything about power into lower impedances, but, you may very well be correct. There was mention of the XA series not having the current delivery of the X series and that the XA's using only two gain stages like the afore mentioned Alephs'.
Unsound, I remember having a conversation with Jon Soderberg, formerly with Threshold and now a top repairman for the older amps. He told me that on the SA-1 that I was actively pursuing that it would double in power into 4 ohms but that the Class A amount of it would be cut in half. Whatever the Class A power was into my Apogees, it was really sweet.
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