Stereophile, Pass Integrated and personal taste

Hi @erik_squires thanks. I keep what I like and sell what I don't; In this case Pass won me over compared to the best Luxman had to offer; Pass Fan boy? Absolutely!! and thank you for the compliment :)

Good luck on your quest of trying to understand the sonic virtues and character of a Pass amp, (or any amp) via input from other people's ear/brains/memories. 

Recent interviews with Uncle Nelson indicate that he certainly is currently on top of the designer heap in just about every way, and has explained (and shared things including giving away his "distortion generator" at Burning Amp) at length his ever evolving design theories...note the term "evolving" which doesn’t seem to apply to many of the neanderthals around here, but has resulted in his amps receiving near unanimous rave reviews...both Pass Labs items and his First Watt designs are considered by many as representing the state of the transistor amp art. There may be some that don’t like the sound of his new stuff, but those are likely to be people who haven’t heard it in the first place (as noted above) as otherwise you’d be hard pressed to find many dissatisfied Pass gear owners.

Eric,
I’d love to hear an INT 25; I really like the approach they took with the output stage topology; reminds me of Gamut or Dartzeel;
My speakers are probably not best load for that amp, but I have to admit I was shocked by how great my XA 30.5 sounded through them; on paper many would say don’t bother, but reality was far different;
The m900 is a beast and has bipolar devices but the Int 250, (all MOSFET ) digs deeper with notably better bass; 

I wonder now many of us really are qualified to judge which designer is at the top of the heap or not. The Berning designs are light years better than the Pass products I have heard or owned to my ears. And yes I have owned designs from both. Rave reviews mean less and less as this industry gets smaller. Nelson is an interesting cat and a great designer, which means nothing if you dont like the sound of his products as much as the designs from some neanderthal designer.