Pass amp vs McCormack with Silver/Gold upgrades...

Hey Jim, good luck, I hope that someone can answer your question. I looked on Ebay and I didn't see any pair of Pass amps listed, are they gone? All I see is a XA 30.5, which is a stero amp for $3680.

I'm curious as to how you've narrowed it down to these two brands. I'm not knocking them, Pass and McCormack are both good amps. I'm just curious as to what you are trying to accomplish. What speakers are you driving? How big is the room? How much power do you think you need? Why brands like Rowland, Classe, Coda, Clayton and others seem to be off your list.

Again, good luck in your quest.

John

Thanks John. I posted a long reply but it doesn't seem to have succeeded. In short, I read many comparisons in forums of X vs Y. These two amps seem to rarely be the less preferred in such discussions.

I have ProAc One SCs, with a Marantz 8B and CJ PV-5. I want more clarity. I have listened to my ProAcs against many other speakers at dealers and their systems were much better than mine. The ProAcs are capable of much more clarity. I thought I'd try a SS amp and new preamp. 11x12 room.

Thanks for asking.

Jim

Interesting. ProAc's are very nice speakers and your amp and preamp are legendary products. I would think the CJ is more of your problem than the amp though. CJ are known to be very musical and warm, but so are ProAc speakers and your Marantz amp. I think you have found out that too much of a good thing is not good. CJ is generally known to be warmer than the Marantz amp though. I think you'd be better off changing preamps first, but that's just my humble opinion.

I'd look for a VAC or ARC preamp. Both of those brands are much more revealing than a CJ, with perhaps the ARC being the most transparent. I have warm speakers too (Soliloquy 6.3i's) and I'm very happy with my Coda Model 11 amp and VAC Auricle preamp. I had a CJ Premier LS 16 mk II for a while, but found it to be too warm when combined with warm speakers.

Just be careful if you get a Pass or McCormack amp, as they have relatively low input impedences, which means they don't mate well with many tube preamps.

Cheers,
John

John, thanks very much. Can you educate me a bit about the impedance matching issue with mating preamps with amps?

Your system sounds really nice. I do agree the PV-5 is probably the weak link limiting clarity in my system. Uncle Stu (don't see him here but he is on that other place) has offered to turn my PV-5 into a PV-11 for a fair price. I also have been reading up on ARC, and I think an SP6, SP8, SP14, or LS5 would be great to try but as I'm pinching pennies for a land purchase they are way above my budget...they all seem to be $2K or so. Another option is one of those

I can pick up a SS amp to try a lot cheaper, even a McCormack. I'm also curious about how the bass will sound compared to my 8B. I may pick up a B&K ST-140 as a start; they are very cheap.

I may start a thread on the impedance thing, I should understand this before investing too much...

Thanks much,
Jim