Amps for Sonus Faber Stradivari Homage

Downunder,

The 100.5's drive Maggie 3.6's. With the ART 3 in front of the Pass, I find it very easy to listen to, smooth and excellent low level detail. This is coming from a guy who loves SET/300b amps (have them in another system). I had Mac 1000 monoblocks before the Pass.

Those 8a's with the teflon caps must be nice driving your Strads. Never had a chance to listen to 8a's. I'd say the Pass gives up a little to what my 300b's can do in the mid/upper range (with the right speaker) but it's just a matter of the best amp for the the job and the Pass is it for my Mags. Regarding bass, with the Pass I can feel the low notes fluttering against me rather than just a "one note" pound. I didn't get that with the Mac's even with their 1000 watts.

Today ive just ordered my ARC Anniversary REF40 preamp. Now i'm waiting for it to come. I hope in one month it will be here. Thanks for advices and i will write my impressions after the 600 hours brake in.

Fantastic! Congrats! Definitely looking forward to reading your post!!! Run them 24/7 so we wont have to wait more than a month! :)

I'll try...but my local dealer told me to not push the tubes to hard..and that the powers needs to get the signal to amplify it...so i will run like 12-14h a day unfortunately. Do you think i can run it with the powers switched off ?

The 160.5´s are in.... yhaaa ! The 600.5 are also here, so I have had some very interesting evenings. The 160.5´s have only had about 60 hours of burn in so far. The 600.5`s are pre owned, so they are in a ready to rumble state.
My impresions so far, are that the 160.5´s sound sweeter by a small margin, but the 600.5´s have better low end control and slamm. Thy are deffenetly brothers.... the over all tonallity is the same and the X 600.5´s are sonically very close to the XA´s.
But I will have to say that I have also compared the Pass amps to the MSB 202 monos I have been playing on for the last 6 months, and so far they sound better ower all. First and foremost they are more neutral to my ear. They sound more airy in the top end, and imaging and body is better than the XA´s even. There is no doubt that the 600.5 has more brute power, but they sound like a welding machine in comparison ( = less finess ). It might be that the XA´s will surpass the MSB´s when they get more burn in time, but so far it seems to me that MSB are the winner.
There is also something about the timing of the MSB´s that surpases the Pass amps.. very hard to explain, but the timing is very "natural" and organic. A bit like the sound of the Atmasphere OTL amps, if you know what I mean.

I will get back when the 160.5`s have had more time to settle.