Yamaha integrated amp as3000 vs Pass integrated

Donut transformers come with their own set of issues. All of these amps are so seriously overspeced/overbuilt that I seriously doubt I could tell a difference between them. I had the 1100 and 2100 side by side for a couple of months before I sold the 2100 and to me they sounded identical when fed via RCA from Chord Hugo 2. I cannot imagine the 3000 sounds that much better, but that’s why I always buy new gear before selling older stuff, so I can do side by side on the fly comparison. My assumption is that the 507 and 3000 will sound a tiny bit different but I wouldn’t say one that one will be better than the other. Yammie to me gives up that last gram of detail resolution for more harmonically rich sound. What it gives up there, it seems to reclaim with a slight advantage in low bass. Neither give me the last ounce of presence/ambience I get from the AR tube gear which is weird cause the AR gear is actually the driest sounding of all 3. 

It always baffles me when people ask what specific piece of equipment they should buy rather than stating what aspects of sound reproduction they value most and/or are looking to improve upon.  Without knowing the latter, how can we possibly recommend the former?  Argh!!!

@atl4love You know what other piece of Yamaha gear has a donut transformer? Their top of the line CX-A5000/5100/5200 home theater processor which is actually not too shabby of a preamp/DAC in itself. I love mine. Just upgraded from CX-A5000 to CX-A5100 that I bought from a member here. Cannot wait for the home theater room to be finished. Doing a bit of crazy architectural work where a 25ft wall will entirely disappear and open the theater to the outside when the weather is nice. It's taking forever.

So I've spent the weekend playing few test pieces between Yamaha AS1100 and Luxman L507ux and switching on the fly. Luxman is better by a small factor. Yamaha is just a little bit vailed and a bit less natural to me. The low end is a bit too much on Aerial 7Ts. On the other hand, when using Aerial 5Ts, my preference goes to Yamaha.