Who did hear the new Pass Labs .8 series amps?

^People who might have otherwise have bright sounding systems?

My guess is transparent cabling a poor match for the amps.

You need at least 400 hours to hear were you are heading to. I said earlier that I never would choose for only copper in a set. Silver is essential in every highend set. It is about the extra air around instruments and voices. Often a bigger stage and more decay. And a sharper individual focus of instruments and voices. In one year of time I did compare a few sets with MIT copper with Audioquest silver. Audioquest was superior in every single part you Judge a cable for.

Thanks, Cal, interesting. Our listening space too is L-shaped into dining area/kitchen and has bass challenges. But we are using a sub below 125 Hz, so our X250.5 does not do any low bass work, and it sounds sweet yet very natural and transparent driving the KEF 201/2 monitor above 125 Hz. So, for now we are really enjoying the X250.5. That said, the new .8 series is food for thought, and it will be interesting to see how it is received by the market. As you say, A/B in one's own space is always the acid test, and I'm likely to give the .8 a run against the .5 at some point down the road.

I do not find the .8s to be darker sounding than the .5s at all