XA 30.5 or mod S/500?

"Anyone heard SA/1s AND heard XA 30.5?"

I had a pair of SA/1's in my house for a month awhile back. They are wonderful amps, even by today's standards. I have owned the 30.5 for about 2 yrs now and have no plans to sell it. I'd recommend the 30.5 unless you like to play your system REALLY loud. If that were the case, I'd recommend getting the biggest X.5 amp you can afford.

BTW, I ran the 30.5 with my Maggie 3.6's. Worked fine. Room was 18x26x10 and the needle hardly ever wiggled (meaning leaving class A). After its 30 watts of class A, you still have another 100 (almost 200 into the Maggies) of A/B.

Another reason I like his newer XA.5 design:

The standby mode keeps the caps fully charged and draw just a few watts. When you're ready for a listen, there is still the wait (45-60 mins) til they heat up to spec but they sound good while doing so.

The X.5 amps do the same thing in stand by mode. The stand by mode on all pass amps keep the caps charged and the driver input board on. When fully engaged it they simply turn on the output transistors.

Cippoliner,

I believe your Threshold preamp is not balanced.
As long as your using this preamp, you will not be using any truly balanced amp to it's full potential.
An Adcom GFP 750 would be an instant upgrade, cheap.

Like your Threshold fet 9, the Threshold S/500 Series II amplifiers are single ended. The Pass XA 30.5 is balanced, and would benefit from a true differential balanced pre.

Thanks to all for relating your experiences and advice. I'll have to digest it all in light of potential costs - the cheapest Passes I've seen on the 'Gon were already more than I HAD been thinking of spending (you can see from my system that I've not got a high-zoot kinda rig). However, I've heard so many accolades about the Pass XA.5 series that if I don't find a good price on a Threshold to send to Jon soon, I may have to bite the Eichmann and go upmarket (won't be any unit beyond the 30.5, though, due to my budget). Thanks again to all.