Pass X350.5 or Krell 302e?

To supplement Ff116's comment. There's quite a bit of difference between the X.5 and the non .5 version of the Pass amps. I own the X350.5. Prior to purchasing it, I had the opportunity to hear it compare side-by-side with X350 at a friend's house as he was debating which one to buy. The preamp was the ARC Ref 2 Mk I. All four of us at the shoot-out all were a bit surprised how lean and solid-state like the X350 sounded. The X350.5 exhibited more of what you would expect from Pass with the warm and tube-like midrange and excellent control on both ends. The bass control was just superb. We all thought the difference justifies much more than just an ".5" upgrade status.

I am running mine with an ARC LS-25 Mk I (with Reference level mod by GNSC).

FrankC

@ Ff116, Thats an interesting post about the evoltion E stereo amp and the Passlabs amp, I was told by Krell and other x krell employees, that the Evolution E amps was different than my modded totally renewed by Krell 700cx, the difference is my amp by far has extrodinary slam!, I would like to compaire this Krell 700 cx to eany passlabs amp as far as the slam department goes, Passlabs is a great product, we all know that, but if you know the history of Krell, each and every model line has had a different sound from one to the other, like the Krell Kas model line, and so fourth, really, the older Krell models are better to me, cheers.

The 0.5 series are superior to the earlier X series. To be unnest the older ones I did not find that impressive. What kind of speakers do you use? Wenn you want the best in 3-dimensional image. The Pass Labs does a better job. There are only a few older Krell amps which sound I loved. But these days I am only interested in the best level in 3-dimensional image. Because this is the key to the absolute sound. Krell is not capable of giving the wide and deep stage as Pass Labs can give. Pass labs is also capable of letting you hear the difference between 2 acoustic guitars with ease in the same recording.

Bo1972, Which Krell to which Pass Labs did you compare, as this make a big diffence and this is, as you know very system dependent.
My Krell 400E mono with ARC Ref 5SE gives a extremely wide, deep and open image, in which it seems, that my speakers where not there.
No need to go to Pass for me, as I am extremely satisfied with the sound.
Said that Pass Labs sound almost broken on eg a Wilson Sasha, where Krell with this speaker shines, so system dependence is always the rule.
Both amplifiers are great and preference of someone also is one key rather than which is better.
And yes, I hear also very easily the difference between 2 acoustic guitars in the same recording.

Best

I auditioned pass 250.5 at my local dealer and liked everything expect dynamics and bass. I am surprised by the comment that Krell 402E did not have bass that is not as good as than older generation of Pass??? Latest Krells are great amplifiers. I own latest Krell 302e and in my house compared it with Plinius sb301, Mark Levinson 532H, Gamut d200i and latest Hegel H4SE.
Krell has better bass, more airy highs and very energetic and natural midrange with very real 3d sounstage and of cause its dynamics are awesome.
I really would like to know if in this price range (around $10K) there is something better overall . I agree with some comments here that pre-amp can be an issue when auditioning pre-amp. It needs to be a great match with the amplifier or it will kill all the goodies that particular amp is famous for.