Pass Labs xa - .5 amps

Mozvz,
I second Tvad's suggestion to contact Reno HIFI. If you do not have a local dealer to audition the amps directly, Mark at Reno is an excellent option. His prices are fair and he allows in-home auditions for 30 days. He is very pleasant to deal with, but he is not local.

RmRobinson,
Sorry I did'nt see the second part of your original post. As far as speaker cables are concerned, Pass recommends short lengths and thick cables with their amps. I use Harmonic Technology Pro 9 plus cables 1.5 meters long as recommended by my dealer, and they work great with my XA100.5s. With monoblocks you can use shorter cables by placing the amps just behind the speakers, but my dealer recommended nothing shorter than 4-5 feet. Hope that helps.
Peter

Class A operation surely does seem to have it's benefits, but, let's not credit all an amplifiers apparent prowers to this aspect of it's design alone.

I will contact Reno Hi-Fi. Honestly, I am still sifting through various questions in my mind and will make a decision in the next few days.

I've never owned a Class A only amp. I've had A/B's and D's. I know the Class A gets rather hot, but only from others comments about them. When they are in standby mode, do they generate a tremendous amount of heat or once they are powered on, the heat increases substantially?

My XA100.5 is room temp in standby mode, warm after powered on, slightly warmer after a few hours of music. The XA160 was warmer still, but never hot, the Aleph 2 was VERY HOT. There was a photo circulating on the net of the Aleph 3 with a fried egg on top of it.