Pass XA200.8 Review - Fun measurements

hddg :

I very much care about measurements. That is part of how I enjoy this hobby is learning what measurements mean to perceived sound quality. That doesn’t mean I buy based on . specs. The point of this thread is very much to help illuminate this aspect of our hobby. Whether distortion is a selling point.

I also wonder how much of this is learned or trendy. I’ve lived with Parasound and Class D amps that have much lower distortion figures than Pass. I also loved old CJ tube amps. I simply do not like the Pass sound at all. The point is not that you should agree with me, but rather, I wonder if this is in fact a learned or acquired taste? Does our ear / brain mechanism change according to what we spend time listening to?

And how much of this is driven by reviewers and price? I’ve seen plenty of evidence of this in speaker land. 

Kind of related to this, I really would have liked to have seen what Carver did when he attempted to match the CJ Premiere amps. Did he add more harmonics? 

Best,

Erik

I read the measurements and they are quite respectable and aren't pejorative in substance or assessment.  I'm not sure of the point of this post, other than an axe to grind with the concept of Pass?  These amps are massive, heavy, and there are two of them. Adjusted for inflation, the XA100.8 pair would have been about 6.5K in the mid 80s, back when a Levinson 200W, unbalanced, stereo ML-3 was 5K. A pair of ML-9 amps was 6K which would be about 18-20K today.

Want to spend less? Choose the X60.8.  I have a pair of XA100.8 which replaced the XA60.5 which replaced Classe MA-600 and Luxman M800a, which replaced a pair of Bi-Amped Accuphase A50s, all of which were excellent.

I read the measurements and they are quite respectable and aren’t pejorative in substance or assessment.

I disagree. That’s quite a bit of distortion in the 21st century.

I’m not trying to grind an ax here so much as talk about whether it is exactly that distortion which people are paying money for, and it seems it is.

That’s fine, it adds to our understanding of what people like to listen to. 


Best,

E

Erik,

I think i did catch the sense of your post, and i have responded to it my way, cannot do otherwise. I do not own any Pass amps at this stage. Heard them several times and I cannot objectively say that they are bad sounding amps, on the contrary. In my thread I also said that they bettered by far my beloved Benchmark AHB2 amps on the Tannoy GRF90, but these are efficient speakers. This assessment was without appeal before a panel of over 10 experienced audiophile, with only one of them actually owning Pass. I cannot say neither that they measure badly, but they certainly have drawbacks. I don't think that it is neither a learnt or acquired taste, except maybe for a few beginners or marketing influenced few. At this level of price, I think that many buyers are well advised audiophiles. From my continuous observations, I have come to conclusion that Pass try to achieve the good sound that good tube amps provide, so it seems logical to me that the measurements correlate in some way, although the Pass actually do measure far better...but they are not tubes, so they'd better!! And, from my various experiments with them, I also think that in most cases they must/should be associated with quite efficient speakers, especially as concerns XA.8 models, due to their lack of dynamics (for my taste). They have beautiful tones and other qualities, they are easy listening amps and maybe this is a large part of what attracts people to them, but in my view, dynamics and attack are essential to perfectly reproduced music, and this is maybe where the measurements are at fault !!...slew rate, damping, available current, type of fets used, whatever, but it must correlate to measurements at some point. The distortion certainly makes for the nice tones, but some energy is missing for the dynamics, and for such power consuming, heat producing, price of amps, I think it is an issue that Pass should address ASAP. 

by the way this is a nice and intelligent post Erik.