billtro
Yes, the xa30.8 has unbelievable drive capability. I used to have a pair of Magnapan 3.7i's with a pair of their DWM woofers wired in parallel to the xa30.8 and that means it was a constant 2 ohm load that the amp "saw" and it drove that setup effortlessly and sounded so musical it wasn't even funny. The are a lot of lesser amps that would have just shut off with that setup. I enjoted that system for 3 years. I am now using a pair of Eminent Technology LFT8B's with that same amp and I love it. Those speakers are 83db efficient and it also sounds amazing.
I've had a lot of good preamps over the last 5 years such as Parasound JC2, a Mac C52 and a Rogue RP7 and others but the PS Audio BHK preamp was so much more musical with much better tonal color and much more accurate timbre. It just draws you into the music. I think the PS Audio is a very underrated preamp for the money and maybe gets overlooked by audiophiles willing to spend up to $10,000.00. You have to put a pair of vintage 1950's or 1960's nos tubes in it (I used a pair of Telefunken 12au7's) and it just comes to life. It will surprise you, it did me. Retails for $5995.00 and you can pick them up used for between $3 - $4000.00. Bascom H King has been designing tube based electronics for over 50 years! He knows all the tricks. Great preamp for the money.
The Pass amps sound best when with balanced interconnects. In my opinion, Pass class a/b amps sound very good but their class a designs are magic. If you can take home that xa30.8 and listen to it in your own system I think you'll wind up getting one. Their xa25 is supposed to be a giant killer if you don't run balanced cables. Nelson Pass is another guy who's forgotten more than a lot of these other amp designers may ever know. The guy is a genius. Hope this helps. Good luck.
Scot
