Pass Labs xa - .5 amps

Chashas1, not to beat this to death, but what speakers were you using? I'd like to know for future reference.

FWIW, I thought the Pass XONO phono was boring, and I've thought the Pass Labs rooms at CES were also fairly bland.

I've found pairing my XA-60.5 amps with preamps other than Pass have provided good boogie (Lamm, SMC Audio, and believe it or not Juicy Music...).

Soren, I agree it was not a fair comparison due to power issues. Try an x350.5 or x600.5, maybe with a little toe-in on your speaker.

nothing fancy, some regas, some others, all can time normally in the same room, with various other gear.
I kept thinking the gear wasn't getting it's due, yet everytime something else replaced it the system boogied again. I could see where the amps would be a great mate with ultra revealing speakers, at least for the mid/uppers. The low end I couldn't understand at all. It was big, to be sure, but sluggish.

Was it the newest phono stage you've heard? I can't remember the model, I think retail is $3800-4k?

Anyway, not to slag the gear at all, for certain ears or certain gear it might be just the thing. But I've got my suspicions.

You read the articles, the reviews, you know the company history, without hearing it you love everything about it, and then you hear it. I'm finding this to be true about a lot of gear lately. Too bad.

The Pass phono I auditioned was the Xono, not the phono that has just been released.

RmRobinson1957,
Although haven't listened to Krell I believe in Krell's excellent handling of the bass given the number of acolations they receive. It might come down to your expectation for the total package, from top to bottom of the frequency range. As for me, I can tell you that I have not heard of any Class AB amp. coming near to realism that a Class A amp can, such as my XA60.5. Elsewhere in this thread I already described what that means. As to the bass itself, my speakers have their own powered subwoofers but I don't crank up their volume because too much bass would cloud out everything else. Leaving the sound to its natural setting, I have no problem at all getting distinctive bass that pound the ground when the music calls for it. As to comment about preamp, mine is the Bryston SP2 playing music on the 2-channel bypass mode. Bryston is known for bass. Perhaps that helps; perhaps it doesn't make a difference to the Pass XA60.5.