Pass Labs AMP’s- What is the best Pass Amp Sound for You from past 10 years

Hey OP,

Listen I don't want to hijack your thread, but I am curious if you get to compare Pass to other brands and keep coming back to Pass.
If so, I'd love to read your experience on those other brands and what you feel the delta is. Maybe not on this thread.
Thanks,

Erik

Erik_squires: that is not my experience.  Please start a new thread. I’d like to hear about it but not here. Thanks. 

@georgehifi , I believe the Threshold S 500’s were rated to about 20% Class A; or 50 Watts. With impedance drops; as the power output doubled, the Class A output halved.

There are 20 output devices per channel for a total of 40. Though, I think something like 4 devices per side were used for the then trick Stasis circuitry.

To support 50w of Class_A in the S500 with 76v rails those heatsinks would have had to be 3 x the size. I’ve built enough Class-A’s to know how much heatsink is needed for the rail v used, some had to be water cooled.

There are 20 per channel but only 18 as outputs, two are used as drivers. https://ibb.co/9h2dGW9

Cheers George

@georgehifi, You probably know better than I. I'm just reporting what Threshold claimed. It's interesting that Threshold's SA1's which were rated by Threshold as 160 Watts of Class A power were mono-block's of the same platform as the stereo S 500.

Until recently I owned my long term McIntosh Mc 501mono blocks paired with Sonus Faber Amati Homage Speakers and the Awesome Modwright Ls 36.5DM preamp and I thought my system was good not great, on a whim I picked up the outstanding Pass Labs XA30.5 for a second Amp well this Amp blew me away the layers of detail in my system was just outstanding and control of deep Bass was much improved over my McIntosh I was so impressed I sold my McIntosh mono blocks (something I never thought I'd do) and bought a used  set of Pass Labs XA100.5 mono blocks I am still running these in (they have been sitting for a year) it's sad what I was missing,  I did love my McIntosh but Pass Labs XA.5 Amplifiers are in a different league,  enjoy!