Pass Labs X250

Well I arrived home last night from Vegas and hooked up my Pass amp that arrived that day before. Initially I had a problem with my preamp which has been rectified today. After a few hours of listening, I have finally reached audio nirvana. I am astounded at how good this amp sounds. The amp is extremely musical and dynamic. The music is more palpable and emotional. It sounds more real. The amp seems to have no sonic character of its own. It simply gets out of the way. The level of clarity and detail is much better than my A21. The back ground is completely black. The is no grain, edginess, harshness or fatigue. Bass is tight, controlled and deep, more so than my A21. The amp has this effortlessness about it. Music played at low volume sounds the same at higher volumes which is saying a lot considering my speakers are Magnepan 1.6's which tend to sound their best at moderate to loud volumes. The sound stage is huge, the amp has the ability to take compressed recordings and open them up. The level of transparency is fantastic and the music has a 3D sound. There is much improved spacing among instruments and it seems like I can pick them out of the air. The overall sound is very liquid and smooth. Before I bought this amp, I was thinking about buying a pair of Magnepan 3.6's or 3.7's. But the 1.6's sound great with this amp, I now see no need to upgrade the speakers.

If I have to list the con's to this amp, they would be that it gets hot while my A21 almost never got warm. After 2 hours of listening it warmed up the 17x17x9 room. The X250 also has a power meter on the front and at the top of the meter is a bright blue LED that is irritating when I turn the lights out and listen. I took care of this by placing a small piece of blue painters tape directly over it to diffuse it. The amp also weighs in at 100lbs and requires 2 people to move. By comparison, my A21 was 60lbs. As far as sound is concerned, the midrange could have a little more weight or lushness to it.

By the way, if any one is interested in purchasing a used X250, let me know. There is a guy selling one for about $2650. He wants to move up the line to an X350.

Anyone interested in buying a Parasound A21 for $1300, give me a buzz.

that is exactly how I was the first time I hooked up my X150.5 and listened to it. I am glad you are happy with your new amp and I was kind of excited to hear how it compared to the A21 since the Parasound gets high reviews from all the publications. I guess in its price class it is good but the Pass amps are in their own league in my opinion.

Thanks! The A21 does a lot of things well and at its price point it is hard to beat. But it is way out classed by the Pass. I can't see any reason to buy another amp unless I win the lottery. By the way, I swapped in a pair of tubes that have a fuller mid range and it took care of the mids needing some added fullness. Now I have nothing to complain about the amp till summer comes.

they are very expensive space heaters. But they are well worth it sonically. By the way when you are running your amp at listening volume where does your needle seem to rest at. I just wonder because running my Dynaudio's the needle runs at about 1/3 unless a really hard bass hits and I know that is a good thing because most likely I never leave class A mode for most of my listening which is one of the reasons these amps sound so full of emotion in the first place.

My needle runs at about 2/3's between the left hash mark and center. However, when I play bass heavy dynamic music at moderate volumes, the needle crosses over to the right of center and moves around quite a bit. I love this amp so much, I think I am going to divorce the wife and marry the amp.

I will post some pictures of my gear next week.

By the way, many thanks to Mr. P and Harley for initially turning me on to Pass Amps. I have never heard one before and took a leap of faith.

Best Regards,

Larry

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Originally Posted by blackraven

By the way, many thanks to Mr. P and Harley for initially turning me on to Pass Amps. I have never heard one before and took a leap of faith.

Best Regards,

Larry

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Congrats on your new amp -- I'm envious.

Like I said recently, Pass Labs is the one marque in which I'd have complete confidence to acquire sound unheard.

Well well now Raven...whats the fuss all about? Oh, you got Mr. Pass in the house! Great amp isn't it? congrats my friend....glad you are having fun again...but if you want to take things up a notch or two, get some better cabling...at least do your new amp a favor and get a new Power Cord! Ask Mr P...he has a very good Power Cord in the Clarus Clemson Power Cord...best cord I have ever heard....and if you dont want to for out that kind of doe, you can always get the Triode Wire Labs cord at much cheaper prices.....try the Triodewirelabs.com 7+....I have the 10+ and its not to far behind the Clemson. I'm sure after a while you will stgart noticing some of the things I talked about in my posting.

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Originally Posted by frenchmon

Well well now Raven...whats the fuss all about? Oh, you got Mr. Pass in the house! Great amp isn't it? congrats my friend....glad you are having fun again...but if you want to take things up a notch or two, get some better cabling...at least do your new amp a favor and get a new Power Cord! Ask Mr P...he has a very good Power Cord in the Clarus Clemson Power Cord...best cord I have ever heard....and if you dont want to for out that kind of doe, you can always get the Triode Wire Labs cord at much cheaper prices.....try the Triodewirelabs.com 7+....I have the 10+ and its not to far behind the Clemson. I'm sure after a while you will stgart noticing some of the things I talked about in my posting.

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The extent to which cables make a difference depends on the combination of cable + upstream + downstream component, and there is know way to reliably predict which of the thousands of combinations that will work.

This make cable swapping the fastest method to pi$$ away your hi-fi budget with no certainty of results.

I also believe cables make a difference and will eventually change to better cables myself but I am so happy with things the way they are after switching to the XLR cables and using my interconnects between my dac and preamp that it will be a while before I buy anything else cable wise. If anything I might upgrade power cables on my amp and also on the Quintet but other than that I think I will just enjoy and save for an upgrade in speakers. I would say let Raven enjoy his new amp for a while before trying to get him to throw down $500 on a new power cable. Just my opinion.

It is interesting to know where your amp runs with higher volumes on your Magnepans since they are notorious for needing power to be their best. I was wondering because when I upgrade speakers I am not sure which direction I am going yet. I have moved to a new house with a much bigger listening room(20X15 1/2 X 8) which is not huge but big enough to have a lot of choices with my next speakers so I am keeping up on all the otions so when the time comes I have a direction.

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Originally Posted by frenchmon

Well well now Raven...whats the fuss all about? Oh, you got Mr. Pass in the house! Great amp isn't it? congrats my friend....glad you are having fun again...but if you want to take things up a notch or two, get some better cabling...at least do your new amp a favor and get a new Power Cord! Ask Mr P...he has a very good Power Cord in the Clarus Clemson Power Cord...best cord I have ever heard....and if you dont want to for out that kind of doe, you can always get the Triode Wire Labs cord at much cheaper prices.....try the Triodewirelabs.com 7+....I have the 10+ and its not to far behind the Clemson. I'm sure after a while you will stgart noticing some of the things I talked about in my posting.

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Hey Frenchmon, I think your spell check failed you. I believe the Clarus cable is called the Crimson, not the Clemson.

Thanks guys. Right now my wife would make my life miserable if I spent more than $100 cables. I plan on buying a pair of Analysis plus interconnect cables in a couple of months. I can use another pair of IC's. I do have an after market AQ AC12 (with a ferrite for RFI) power cable that I was using with my A21 that I will give a try with the Pass. I have to think that power cables are system dependent. I have noticed no difference with the power cord. It came with my Music Hall CD player and pro reviewers said it made a noticeable difference in the sound of my MH, but I did not notice a difference with it compared to the stock power cord. I have noticed differences with some IC's, some good and some bad.

If I make any expensive move, it will be to upgrade my preamp. Van Alstine had a new tube preamp that I can swap in my current chassis for about $800. I was over at his house the other day and got a chance to listen to it and it is an improvement over mine. Or I may look for a used BAT with balanced connections. I will be doing a review of Van Alstine's 2 new tube preamps in a couple of weeks after he gets back from the RMAF.

Fenor...i have been in a few cable shoot outs.. And I can say without a doubt, cables and power cords make a difference. But some gear...especially cheaper gear can have to much of a house sound that wont pass the sonic signature as well. My Rotel was like that. It had a strong house sound. The Vincent gear is totally different. Its clear and transparent and responds to anything I use in the system.

thanks Jack for the correction.

Yeah I can understand what Harvey is saying. When I got the Vincent, I used the stock pc to run it in. After it was run in I added the PC. Now PC as with all cables are going to lean towards the warm side, be neutral, or lean to a more lively side. But what a cable should not be is grainy or not clear....a pc can be warm or bright and neutral and still be transparent. The Triode wire Labs PC is neutral. What it did was let me hear my amp...let me hear how it sounds in all its glory. It gave me better clarity and filtered out the back ground noise. Music seems to hang in the air more than before. I also heard this with the Crimson pc as well.

The A+ interconnects are a great entry level cable. I like them and I think Mr Peabody after hearing them in my system thinks they are a good bargan as well at their price point. I will be moving up the line. I did speak to the owner of A+ cables and he told me they have some new models coming out in speaker wire and I assume inter connects as well...so I will wait until he releases new stuff before I make a purchase. My offer still stands....once I get new ones, I can send you my older ones to check out. But thats if you have not purchased them as of yet.

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Originally Posted by frenchmon

Fenor...i have been in a few cable shoot outs.. And I can say without a doubt, cables and power cords make a difference. But some gear...especially cheaper gear can have to much of a house sound that wont pass the sonic signature as well. My Rotel was like that. It had a strong house sound. The Vincent gear is totally different. Its clear and transparent and responds to anything I use in the system.

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I'm just going to say that I'm NOT one of those people who say cables make no difference. I will say I have never heard any difference in normal listening -- BUT I'm not about to admit that my equipment, (including my ears), is so crappy as to be unable to differential the sounds. So call me a naysayer if you like but actually I'm just skeptical.

I am not skeptical by no means that cables make a difference. I have proven it to myself time and time again in my own system and others that I have installed over the years but I also believe there is a limit to what a cable should cost or how much a person should spend on a cable in comparison to how much improvement it gives them in a system. a couple hundred or a few hundred dollars is about my limit. These cables out there that are $10,000 is ludicrous!! I just can't justify that to myself.

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Originally Posted by harley .guy07

I am not skeptical by no means that cables make a difference. I have proven it to myself time and time again in my own system and others that I have installed over the years but I also believe there is a limit to what a cable should cost or how much a person should spend on a cable in comparison to how much improvement it gives them in a system. a couple hundred or a few hundred dollars is about my limit. These cables out there that are $10,000 is ludicrous!! I just can't justify that to myself.

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True that!

I have found that some IC's sound different but I have not found that different speaker cables and power cords have made a difference in my system.

What PC are you using now with the Pass?

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Originally Posted by frenchmon

What PC are you using now with the Pass?

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I am using the stock cord but later this week I will swap in my AudioQuest AC12 to see if there is a difference.

Someone is selling an X150.5 on AudioAsylumTrader for $2700, HERE. That's a fair price, wish I could take advantage of it.

Same guy is also selling a Pass Labs X1 preamp, HERE.

There are a couple of X1's for sale on audiogon. I hope to be able to upgrade my Preamp in about 1 year.

'Raven, check your PM's -- your message quote is exceeded.

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Originally Posted by blackraven

I am using the stock cord but later this week I will swap in my AudioQuest AC12 to see if there is a difference.

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Raven...that cord is for a component such as preamp or CDP...its a 12 gauge. For the Pass you need at least a 10 gauge to hear a real change in the amps performance. Man you can get a good 8 gauge power cord here Triodewirelabs.com

http://triodewirelabs.com/images/sevenwire.jpg

Frenchmon, I will take you up on your offer about the A+ cables.

Thanks,

Larry

Ok...as soon as the new stuff comes out I will send you a pair.