Pass Labs x250.8 or x350.8

The bass seemed kind of unpredictable on my Studio 2's as well. That speaker gave me probably the best and most realistic sound as well as the worst sound depending on pairing/setup.

Is the 350.8 plugged straight into the wall?


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The 350.8 is plugged directly into the wall. It's not a dedicated circuit, but that shouldn't matter at low volumes.

I'm waiting for the 5 day break-in to complete, and then I'll compare it to the Yamaha again, and hopefully a Mark Levinson No. 585 my buddy owns.

FYI, with my xa30.5, the loudest sound I could get was 98db at listening position. It looks like the x350.8 is closer to 104ish.
 
I like the idea of plugging the ports. Since I'm running them on "boundary" mode because Revel decided to boost the bass by a full 5db, putting them in "normal" with something stuffed in the ports might be a good compromise. I'm going to try that.
 
With the down firing port I wouldn't think the Studio 2 would have much of a placement issue. My room don't allow much moving around of speakers, so I didn't move the Studio around much when it was in my system, I got good bass using an original X250. Most Revel speakers do like current. I've read several comments of Revel owners finding good synergy with Pass.

It will be interesting to hear your impressions of the 585 driving the 208. By nature the 585 won't have as full sounding bass response so bass lines should be easier to follow, on the other hand, it's still a powerfull integrated that will drive the 208 more authority than your receiver.
 
I'm curious, why would a 200W amp with a higher damping factor not have a "full sounding" bass?
 
I am not an amp designer or tech, so can't provide you a technical explanation. It takes current to control the woofer, the better the control the less distortion and cleaner the bass is, more punchy. You'll also notice amps with "zero feedback" will always have a thicker bass sound, what I call fuller. My Pass amp had a fuller bass where my Levinson is faster and leaner. It's all in the design.

If your friend brings his 585 over, you'll see.

I had a Krell amp where the current was so high it had an iron grip on the woofers, I couldn't even get my woofers to boom on Rap music. The bass lines were clean and tight with authority though.

One thing I think folks here can agree on you can't tell what an amp is going to sound like by the specs. I think someone posted it here, have you read the interview with Nelson Pass?
 
tarasman said:
I'm curious, why would a 200W amp with a higher damping factor not have a "full sounding" bass?
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Bass can be dampened too much. Like I said before the A21 has over 1000 dampening factor and the Pass is 150. The peaks amps might be higher with the Parasound as well as they list 60 peak amps and Pass lists 20 amps but does not list it as peak, so who knows. I suspect that the Pass has higher peak amps. But spec's ain't every thing. Bass is tighter and faster with the A21 but the bass with the X250 is deeper, more musical and has greater punch and impact. The A21 had better control due to its speed. With the Pass it is definitely slower though and some people may not like it. I brought my X250 to my friends house the other day along with my BAT preamp to try with his Salon 2 Revels. And he commented on the bass being slower and was not sure if he liked it. At the end of the night the Pass won him over. Now his is looking for a new amp and preamp, preferable an X250.5
 
Well, I've packed up the x350.8 and put my xa30.5 in my system. I did NOT do back-to-back comparisons, but my impressions from last night's listening is that the x350.8 seemed quite a bit more resolving, more neutral (in a good way), and the non-bass dynamics, even at lower levels, was superior, in that instruments popped out more in a natural sounding way. I am surprised that my updated pre-amp from 2000 is passing along information the xa30.5 doesn't resolve. The BIG .8 amp is a big upgrade over the little .5. That's not a fair fight of course, but people claim the smaller amps often sound better.

I should have the opportunity to hear the Levinson No. 585 in a few weeks from now.

I haven't written off the Pass amps. I honestly really liked what I heard, except for the bass. I can probably counter that with my SVS SB16-Ultra sub by bumping the crossover up to give an assist in the mid-bass. I did this last night at low volume and it made a big difference, but we all know our hearing curves are weird, so I can't claim that it will sound good at normal listening levels.

By the way, I had 3 people over to listen to my system the other night. 2 of them are audiophiles, and the other is a drummer. The consensus was that the Pass amp destroyed the little Yamaha AVR, EXCEPT that the bass was more tuneful with the Yamaha when played at medium levels or lower. So yeah, it seems bass is the weakness for Pass with some speakers. You can call it "full bass", but if I'm not hearing instruments and I'm hearing woofers instead, it's NOT high fidelity. Period. Filling in with the sub (which is a super low distortion, bad MOFO) makes things more musical.

That said, the x350.8 is tremendous at all other frequencies, and I think it would keep getting better as it broke in further.
 
Definitely Pass Labs amps do more textured bass than Krell or Mark Levinson. Nothing beats the older Krell bass slam but it is one note bass.

Have you tried tuning the bass with power cords, speaker cables or interconnects? That can help.
 
I don't believe in "tuning" with any of those items.

I am experimenting with speaker position. I think the bass is better with them set to boundary and moved closer to the wall, but it does add some weight to female vocals.

I definitely think some of what I was experiencing was speaker boundary interference.

I've ordered a UMIK-1 so that I can run REW to measure my room. I probably should have done that a year ago.
 
I did try that, but I didn't like the resulting sound.

I think I'm learning that my speakers were in a horrible position in terms of speaker boundary interference with the front of the speaker being about 4ft from the wall. The SBIR null would be centered at 70hz, which is a pretty bad place if you're wanting dynamic sounding drums. By moving the speakers closer to the front wall, the resulting null is moved up higher in frequency (say 90hz to 110hz) where broadband bass traps are much more effective. Moving them even further from the wall to move the first null lower may have been effective also, as I see a lot of people with their speakers 6ft from the wall in large rooms.

I still don't know why the cheap receiver was more tuneful in some bass regions, but I do believe that the shortcomings I heard when using the x350.8 were probably SBIR. In fact, that amp probably improved all other bass frequencies, which would have made the null in the 70hz range even more noticeable.
 
Anatta said:
If you're looking for more detail, better woofer control and great measuring, Bryston 4B3/14B3 or Audionet AMP I V2.
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I have done extensive listening of Bryston cubed series with direct comparison to Pass 260.5 and surprisingly the Pass Labs was more detailed and layered. The cubed had more speed but that is the only area where they surpassed Pass Labs. I can imagine that the newer Pass .8 series would be even better. Not sure about speed though.
 
I have done extensive listening of Bryston cubed versus Pass Labs 260.5 and, surprisingly, the Pass labs wins in all areas except speed. I can imagine the new .8 series is even better..FWIW.
 
gtaphile said:
I have done extensive listening of Bryston cubed versus Pass Labs 260.5 and, surprisingly, the Pass labs wins in all areas except speed. I can imagine the new .8 series is even better..FWIW.
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It does not surprise me that the Bryston is quicker. I find Pass to be rounded and a little slow and to my liking. My Parasound A21 was much faster and had tighter bass but that's about it.
 
gtaphile said:
I have done extensive listening of Bryston cubed series with direct comparison to Pass 260.5 and surprisingly the Pass Labs was more detailed and layered. The cubed had more speed but that is the only area where they surpassed Pass Labs. I can imagine that the newer Pass .8 series would be even better. Not sure about speed though.
Click to expand...

What does ‘speed’ mean?
 
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