Thread: Pass XA.5 vs XA.8

Balanced Howard.

Originally Posted by lucey

The room is beyond excellent. I'm a mastering engineer. Warm up was 9 hours. The unit is fully broken in.

Pre amp is discrete class A Crane Song Avocet, had it for 10 years, very musical and still accurate.

Needle moved a little at volume but the amp was not beautiful in the mids and top at any volume. Low end overpowering. Image not large or 3D. The midrange was recessed. High mids hard.

The distinction between all recordings frequency balance was less than tubes reveal I couldn't hear digital vs analog tape productions as well as I'm used to

Other amps here are push pull triodes from Cary.

V12R for 5 years with NOS front end and 8 Treasure 6CA7-Z

211 monos on demo with slightly upgraded tubes.

I demoed the XA.5 years ago and the mids were better but it also lacked the size and 3D depth of the V12

I respect Nelson and don't mean to troll. I thought maybe he had something that could balance neutrality and euphonics.
Maybe in 5-10 years I'll try another SS amp. .

Something ain't right.

The Avocet has all those customizable work station features that I am sure you dialed in manner which pleased you with the Cary stuff (phase, truncation functions, on the fly gain, trim etc.) Maybe something isn't interfacing as well with the .8's.

More likely, I would look at the impedance and phase plots of your speakers. You haven't answered the question of what you are running (or did I miss it). The 211's have some balls for triodes; also, are you using the V12R monos or stereo? Mono would be a lot of juice compared to the 30.8.

The only tweak to the avocet is output gain, but that's not it. I simply didn't care for any part of the amp. The texture, image, freq balance, etc. Plenty of power. More than I have now.

V12R stereo.

Originally Posted by FlexibleAudio

Something ain't right.

The Avocet has all those customizable work station features that I am sure you dialed in manner which pleased you with the Cary stuff (phase, truncation functions, on the fly gain, trim etc.) Maybe something isn't interfacing as well with the .8's.

More likely, I would look at the impedance and phase plots of your speakers. You haven't answered the question of what you are running (or did I miss it). The 211's have some balls for triodes; also, are you using the V12R monos or stereo? Mono would be a lot of juice compared to the 30.8.

Not all power is the same. I would still like to know your speakers. What you describe sounds like a voltage shortage in the mids maybe due to a phase angle and impedance stack-up in these frequencies that the Cary handles better. As you say the Pass has plenty of current for the low frequencies. I presume you run the V12 in triode not ultralinear mode. It just seams hard for me to believe what you describe is the Pass amp.

My 100.8 is great and still improving. The warmth and body of my 30.5 plus sweet tops and strong bass together with natural mids are all present. My Sasha's are singing

My 30.8 produces wonderful mids and highs mating with Focal 1038 Be, which has beryllium tweeter. My pre is XP-20.

Originally Posted by lucey

The room is beyond excellent. I'm a mastering engineer. Warm up was 9 hours. The unit is fully broken in. Pre amp is discrete class A Crane Song Avocet, had it for 10 years, very musical and still accurate. Speakers are Sonics by Joachim Gerhard Allegra (birch ply, not Immedia Allegra)

Needle moved a little at volume but the amp was just not beautiful in the mids and top at any volume. Low end overpowering. Image not large or 3D as compared to the V12R I'm used to. The midrange was recessed. High mids hard. The distinction between all recordings frequency balance was less than tubes reveal I couldn't hear digital vs analog tape productions as well as I'm used to

Other amps here are push pull triodes from Cary. V12R for 5 years with NOS front end and 8 Treasure 6CA7-Z. 211 monos on demo with slightly upgraded tubes.

I demoed the XA.5 years ago and the mids were better but it also lacked the size and 3D depth of the V12R.


I respect Nelson and don't mean to troll. I thought maybe he had something that could balance neutrality and euphonics. The freq balance, size and depth were a let down.
Maybe in 5-10 years I'll try another SS amp. .

I see you edited your post #198 to include your speakers after my requests in my post 202 and 204. Thanks. As I indicated I think the 30.8 may not be a good match with your speakers.

Per JA:

"However, the Allegra is a fairly difficult speaker for the partnering amplifier to drive, with an impedance magnitude (fig.1, solid trace) lying at or below 4 ohms in the bass and the low treble. The electrical phase angle (fig.1, dotted trace) is also relatively large over much of the audioband. The minimum impedance is 2.75 ohms at 3.2kHz."


I fear 2.75 ohms at 3.2 khz and a spiking phase angle thereafter may need more than 30 watts. I would love to get your impressions from the 100.8's.

Hi All.

I'm proud new owner of brand new Pass XA 160.5
I have them now like 2 months and improve they still do. I'm playing those babies 24h during the weekends and like 10h almost everyday. And I know that they still get little better everyday.

I had a AX 60.8 and here is what I wrote till now about the XA 160.5
I hope someone will read it and it will help to make the decisions better suited to someone's needs.

My experience:

I was during those 2 days since I purchased the 160.5 hesitate to write something here. Ut I could not brake myself to do it.
First of al from the beginning it was very pleasant sound form 160.5. It sounded little like my pervious XA 60.8 , very good detail. But lifeless and with a little soft Bass. Very like Aleph X DIY amp yet more controlled because I think of the amount of power.
After like 24h the amps ware even more detailed and began have the crispy yet natural presence. Natural on the warm and very ORGANIC side of the sound. This is real sound for me! And I can't explain how, but I began to hear things in the treble that I was missing out my pervious XA 60.8 !!
After 36h they finally began to call me for attention with those extra information on the tracks. This nuances are very important for me and making in my head more realistic presentation. It is more emotional listening!
In comparison with XA 60.8 they are in Bass region not that detailed as I was already familiar with. The Bass punch me in belly, just not on my whole body like point 8. What I mean is that the bass on point 8 are more detailed. But this is for me less important to me. Maybe it will evolve during the burn-in time.
I have read on the net that during burn-in time the sound on the point 5 will be even more organic?! As for me I can't imagine that, but sure hoop for :-)

What for me is very important that the bad records sounds bearable to my years with this amp.
Oh boy I'm so pleased with it so far, and I want more :-)

I will update this post later on during the burn in time. For me the point 8 is very neutral amp with tight bass and the Point 5 is emotional amp and life like.


Take two:

After now 12 days of burn in those are my conclusions:

The amplifier XA 160.5 is very musical genius! It's quite emotional presentation what I was familiar to Aleph X but with far better neutrality and lighting speed and slam! They are fast compared to Aleph X with toons of meat on the bones. I mean that they reproduce very complex music with toons of information that have weight and on the same time in endless space. Just stunning for me.Believability to this music reproduction is on the top level.. This is amplifier hat combine the Aleph X series with Point 8 to me !
Now there is no comparing possible with my old XA 60.8 because there was never this kind of emotional connection between me and my point 8 Amp. I wrote about this on many more forums in desperate search for the soul in this amplifier!
What stroke me also that listening at quiet levels is more realistic then point 8 amp.
So I will now stop writing on the .8 amplifier because of this. I can't be anymore objective in 100% because of this. The point .5 is definitely my favorite series in Pass Program except the XS series that maybe will be the next big thing

Originally Posted by joeinid

Too bad the point 5 (XA.5) amps are not available new anymore. Darn it.

If it sounded wonderful I'd gladly take a used one. To that end, would there be anyone in the New York area who might allow me to hear their Pass XA30.5?

Also, anyone in New York with nice open baffles that go down to 30Hz with some weight-and driven by practically anything would also be a big help.

Great passively crossed OBs + the XA30.5. A magical combination?

I'm on similar situation,

From mcintosh 452 SS with pre tube c2300, (very musical) > to Pass int30A (musical and warm) > to new int60.

mcintosh and int30A ++ close to tube,,,,, but with int60 i hear more definition, excellent detail, velocity , more real and live sound **but lifeless

after this, I was trying different things with int60.
i wanted velocity and detail of the int 60 with life-heart of the int30A-mcintosh

Pass is very sensible to stand amp i see *

try with put under rubber studs. Appear more harmonics

i thinks, new line pass need source more musical.

like differents matches, krell with pre AR or similar matches

cable speakers transparent can do more musical and open sound.

im sorry for my english : )