new amp on the way

The amp has many more hours on it and it has warmed up very nicely. I had all Cardas and Vansevers cables in the system while the amp was breaking in as these are the smoothest cables I have. The system eventually became almost too dark so I installed a Tara Labs power cord on the amp and Tara Labs interconnects between the preamp and CD player. Also, while the F6 and all of my other amps like to be plugged into the PS Audio, the XA25 was not having any of that. It is now plugged directly into the wall. My Auris II preamp is also plugged directly into the wall per instructions from Ayon. I can now say without question that this amp everything the reviews say it is. It is very musical, involving, very detailed from top to bottom and gets the midrange right. Overall I would rate this amp a 9.5 as I am not thrilled with the binding posts, these have the plastic receivers that keep the cables from touching (per an electrical code of some sort). I much prefer the solid copper posts where you can use a nut driver, like the posts on the F6. Cheers and thanks for following.
 
Glad the amp settled in for you. It amazes me how many amp designers claim no break in is needed.

I only had one Pass power amp, it had the nice T shape handles to tighten down on wire or spades. After those, and Levinson's Hurricane binding post, others can be a disappointment.
 
This amp goes deeper and stronger in the bass than the F6 which was creating some muddiness on certain CD's. I wound up putting points under my preamp to get it off of the factory feet, this helped quite a bit. Then I wound up pulling the speakers about 6" further from the corners. I have a small room and they are now 38" from the back wall (or front wall?) and 24" from the side walls. I also moved the listening position back about 16". This doesn't seem like a lot but I only have 200 sq ft to deal with and getting the bass smooth has been no easy task. I pretty much have it nailed right now. Cheers.
 
Guitardave said:
Not to rain on the parade, but if you want some perspective on how the first Watt and xa25 compare to the ank el34 kits, I have that perspective. I have had the stereo amp and now own the level 4 monoblocks. Previously had 2 xa25’s, sit 2 and 3, 2 j2’s, various other fw and pass’s. The reason I turned all those pass and fw’s? The ank monos. They were simply better in every way. If you can solder, these are really great amps. For perspective I also have arc ref level, Luxman 900 pre and power, and various set’s. The ank are the real deal. But the xa25 is nice, but not equal to the el34 monoblocks.
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They are pretty pricey for a kit amp , especially with all those recently raved about Chinese integrated amps under 2K ready to go ..



Regards
 
I was thinking about getting one of those integrated amps, bypassing the preamp section and using my preamp. However, I am also very tempted to get one of the Border Patrol amps. The ANK amps are also very nice and would feed my need to tackle another project. My present combo of the Volti's and the XA25 is simply outstanding. The dynamics and transparency are highly entertaining. I had my Japanese pressing of Dark Side cranked and Led Zep #1 cranked a bit ago, entertaining as heck....lol.
 
This XA25 (and perhaps my fairly new Player, preamp and speakers) continues to change it's sound a bit as it gets a touch smoother with more bass almost every few days (getting darker). I wound up pulling the speakers away from the corners a bit, spread them as wide as possible and aimed the tweeters to cross about 16" from my ears. This made the sound stage wider and deeper and also reduced just a touch of bass. I then finally installed my two bass traps in the front corners, I did this at the same time as moving the speakers so I'm not sure how much these helped on bass control. I then took the Cardas Golden Cross power cord off of the preamp and installed a Vansevers white power cord. The result ? Slightly less bass and more highs, the midrange stayed about the same. For now it's close to perfect but I have a suspicion it's going to change again. There is about 250 hours on it now. Cheers.
 
Hi i bought a new, integrated amp, sold my Spectral pre and power mono's, was not happy, nothing in it , but after a few months run in the best amp ive had , give it time, and congratataulatuianns, for the amp, iv'e had a few beers :celebrate008_2:
 
greystoke4 said:
Hi i bought a new, integrated amp, sold my Spectral pre and power mono's, was not happy, nothing in it , but after a few months run in the best amp ive had , give it time, and congratataulatuianns, for the amp, iv'e had a few beers :celebrate008_2:
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Congrats on the new amp, OP. Congrats to you also, greystoke4- I ordered the same amp as you, but now they tell me Furutech Japan has COVID-based delays, so waiting, waiting, waiting...and then burn-in is MORE waiting!
 
When I called Mike my intention was to get a Luxman amp but it would have been a very long wait due to all of these delays. I got the XA25 as I just had to buy something and the wait was only a month or so. Congrats to both of you guys. Isn't it fun to get new stuff?
 
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