Anyone auditioned Pass Labs XP-30 preamp?

Philipwu..I would take the Hegel P-30 over the Ayre KX-R in a heart beat. The Hegel is warmer, richer and fuller than the Ayre. One thing I don't like about the Ayre is the loud clicking sound of the volume control when you raise or lower the decibel gain. Damn annoying. The other negative of the Ayre is the output impedance is 300 ohms balanced and 150 ohms single ended.which is too high for my blood. The output impedance of the Hegel is 75 ohms which makes it easier to drive amps with low input impedance. The Ayre has great resolution and detail and is very fast but is not as relaxed and organic as the Hegel. If your looking for an exotic sculptured space age looking piece of aluminum with an interior that looks like the circuit boards inside the dash board of a UFO, then the Ayre is for you. But if musical performance is paramount to your needs you will get a much better sounding Preamp with the Hegel and won't waste $18,500.00 on the Ayre.

NP Danielk141, planning to check out the H30 at my local dealer.

Hthaller,
Even if its a bit off topic here: Could you please let us know your opinion on the Pass Labs speaker SR-2 which you heard at Reno Hi-Fi? How do they compare to your Martin Logans? Are they a perfect fit for pass amps what one might expect? Your opinion would be very much appreciated.
Many thanks in advance!
BoSo27

Audiozen, I believe that someone is selling you a line of bull on the feed forward versus feedback argument. You can always achieve lower levels of measured performance with feedback loops. In critical control applications such as reactor design no one uses feed forward without having a feedback loop. With respect to amplifier design it's my understanding that you can get excellent measured performance with feedback designs. However, designs which use too much feedback don't sound as well subjectively.
You are naive if you believe Nelson Pass is unaware of these trade-offs.

Sorry - I don't check the forums all that often, but regarding the SR-2's ...

They sounded very good, indeed, but making a direct comparison is tough. The room environment was very different from my own and I was actively focused on the differences I was hearing in the electronics.

What I can tell you is that were no obvious flaws that drew attention. Very open, detailed, 3-dimensional, as you would expect from a dynamic driver system. Maybe missing a half octave at the bottom, though hard to say with the source material being used. I felt they were more seamless and "refined" than my Odyssey's, which are an older generation of ML technology, to be fair.

They are a bit pricey, though. I think retail is ~$18,000.

As you say - a bit off topic - but the last step in evolving my system was to trade the Odyssey's in on a new pair of Summit X's. I made two trips to Overture last summer and auditioned them against the Magnepan 3.7's and 20.7's. However, I did not audition any dynamic speakers that they carry. There were plenty to choose from, but was advised that to decisively better the Summit X's, I'd be looking at spending $25k and up.