Anyone auditioned Pass Labs XP-30 preamp?

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.

Hthaller,
Thank you so much for your post!
Have fun with the Summit X´s!
I will try to listen to the SR2 myself.

The p20 does not use the so called feed forward tech sound engine yet still managed the same noise floor as p30 at 130db.
Yet the p20 performance is claimed to be 90% of the p30.
So much for the feed forward soundengine crap

I just listened to the "priceless" Pass Labs 40th Anniversary Sony Vfet amplifiers(only six in the world!) at the NY Audio Show. They were being driven by the XP20 which surprised me so I asked the Sony rep why they didn't opt for the XP30 in this cost no limit configuration? He said simply that they had initially used the 30 but found that the XP20 just sounded better and allowed the Vfet amps to really produce the magic that Nelson Pass knew that their output devices were capable of... If that's not a testimonial for the XP20, I don't know what is!?