Running a preamp and power amp from the same designer / manufacturer tends to colour the sound in one particular fashion too heavily in my experience. That's because all of the same design goals / circuit implimentation / sonic traits of the preamp are implimented all over again in the amp. Better to mix and match, unless one likes that specific sonic flavouring that "matched components" tend to generate.
With the above in mind, i've always thought that Curl's preamp designs had a lot more potential built into them and Pass's amps were nicer sounding. That's just my opinion based on the exposure that i have to both engineers previously available designs.
Bare in mind that unless the engineer / designer is the one that is actually manufacturing the product, what they design / engineer and how the manufacturer actually produces that product may be two different things. As such, the designer / engineer shouldn't necessarily be judged by another manufacturers product. In this specific case, Adcom and Parasound had the final say, not Curl or Pass. Sean
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