Pass labs xa25 amp and BW 804 d3?

@jetter, like many of us I wouldn’t consider my range of experiences to be extensive enough to put it quite as broadly as you did in your question. But I would certainly consider the XA25 to be a very strong candidate that should be considered by anyone looking to purchase a solid state amp in its price range or higher, for use with speakers having medium to high sensitivities.

Also, thanks to the others who have recounted their experiences and provided additional perspectives on this very special amp in recent posts. Enjoy!

Best regards
-- Al

Thanks Al, I am kind of conflicted for the first time in a while. I always wanted a high powered amp and am on the fence between the Parasound A21+ power and the Pass XA25 sound quality. I can score a fairly good deal on both, and now am fairly tempted to buy both and sell whichever after using them in my system.  

@jetter Perhaps it's not quite as good of a deal, but for shipping only RenoHIFI will let you demo the XA25 for 10 days. A nice risk free way to hear the amp.  That's what I did.

Thanks cal, thinking about calling Reno.

gweedoargus, now that you have had your XA25 for a couple of weeks and you are a little more familiar with it could you provide a little more in depth review of how you are liking it?  Its tonality, soundstage and is it powering your speakers as you hoped? Plusses and any minuses.  I am considering this amp myself.

A bit late here, but...

I’m running Wilson Sophia 3s with the Pass XA25. The Sophia’s are ~87db/1W efficiency. They are made easy to drive (nominal 4Ohm impedance), but not all that efficient. I’ve had the XA25 since last Summer.

90 - 100 db is about the loudest I’d listen to, so the Pass is barely loafing most of the time at 1 - 3 watts or so. (I thought I needed high-power too until I actually tried the XA25, thanks to Reno Hi-Fi’s trial period.)

I can turn it up louder than I want to listen to it without any noticeable compression, soundstage collapse, or clipped transients or dynamic swings.

I posted some comments on my experience with the XA25 on other threads (you can search my threads or for XA25). It’s keeper for me.