What are the weak points of Pass amps and pre-amps ?

pwhinson, when you previously wrote that Pass recommended the X series over the XA series I wondered if they mentioned to you why they made that recommendation?  I am sorry to say that I have never heard a Pass, but it would seem that either series has high wattage amps that will drive most speakers, and that which you purchase is a matter of whether or not you prefer a class A sound and a matter of costs? 

Hi kosst, I think that opens up a whole can of worms of whether a low or high efficiency speaker inherently sounds the best? One would think that if all high efficiency speakers sound better than their low efficiency counterparts there would be no need for higher powered amps as there would be no speakers needing that power.

Now going off thread, I guess the question is what are the advantageous and disadvantageous of low and high efficiency speakers?

One obvious advantage of high efficiency and easy to drive (i.e., uniform impedance) speakers is the ability to drive them with less powerful amplification and having a greater choice of amplification for the money. I wish I had considered that years ago but instead now have myself in a position where I need rather large (and therefore expensive) amplifiers. The cost of high quality amplification per watt of power goes through the roof when you need a lot of watts, and you can forget tubes unless you want to spend a fortune on tube replacement.

It would have been nice to be able to use something like the First Watt amps, the lower wattage 30 wpc Pass Class A amps, or any number of under 50 wpc tubed or SS amps available.

I am wondering why all speakers are not high efficiency?  Why make medium or low efficiency speakers at all, what are their advantages?

Kickbacks from amp manufacturers perhaps.