pass labs xa30 to valve amplifier.

James,
The Opera Consonance tube amps are very good(built quality and sound). The very good tube amps are quite transparent and revealing also james. There`s no 'masking' of information, they just are`nt as analytical or dry sounding as 'some' SS amps tend to be.Good tube amps will preserve the 'natural' bloom and body tone that`s less clinical in nature and more organic.You`ll certainly hear the differences in your recordings however.

You Zingalis have the efficiency for not needing many watts (tube or ss) but if they have any severe dips in impedance and even worse, a bad phase angle in the lower ranges, a tube amp may not be the best choice. Most tube amps do not like dishing out a bunch of current at a moments notice, the Pass couldn't care less.

A tube preamp would be a step in the right direction. A tube amp may be a bigger step toward your goal.

Thank you for reply. ive also been considering a tube preamplifier as a next step. that would also enable to keep the pass. do you or anyone else have sugesstions as to which ones would be in a similar league to the pass. cd player and pass have balanced connections so i would like to keep the balanced chord anthem, if possible. how would an old arc preamplifier fare? ive seen pre used ones that sell for around 1000 uk pounds. however, i think these are many years old. an sp8 sold recently on an auction site for 900 uk pounds. Any idea how much i should spend? i am very grateful for assistance given. thank you.

James123, a preamp that supports the balanced standard is my suggestion. The ARC is one that does not. The balanced standard (what created balanced line operation) is supposed to make the system immune to the quality/length of the cable. If the preamp does not support the standard, you will find that the cables still make a difference.

Ideally to do this the preamp will ignore the ground connection of the cable.

If I'm not mistaken, the ARC may have troubles driving the input impedance of the Pass. That has been discussed in other threads.

As a general rule of thumb, its a good idea to allocate about the same funds for the preamp as you do the amp, but individual circumstances often create wide variations :)

i have tried the Audio research Ref 5 preamp with my XA30.5. i used balanced input from my Wadia and balanced output. i found no impedance mismatch.
i suggest you try the Audio research REF 3. you might like it.