Stereophile, Pass Integrated and personal taste


Stereophile has reviewed another Pass product, the Int-25, and again I found the distortion signatures super interesting:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/pass-labs-int-25-integrated-amplifier-measurements

I wonder if it is possible that such a signature could be something some fall in love with and some are pushed away from?


Best,

E
erik_squires
wlutke374 posts01-25-2020 1:50amGive it a rest Eric, for God’s sake
+1 and some
Ditto, Eric starts new Pass threads when he has the chance to be negative about them. This is around the 4th or 5th thread started by him that focuses on the negatives in it’s context that he pulls out of his head usually.
Someone must have drop’ed a Pass Labs amp on his foot/head at one time?
I don’t particularly like them either being Mosfet, but I don’t have this kind of unhealthy obsession with them to go out of my way to start these kinds of new threads about them.

Cheers George
@OP New here and sometimes struggling to keep up but I think I get what you're getting at.  Example.  Jitter etc aside, CD source often considered cold, clinical and uninspiring.  Too perfect perhaps? Consider too that some added noise allows for our ears/brains to resolve better (just like certain algorithms and digital processes converge better) so maybe a similar relationship exists for amp likability.  An ultimately neutral, perfect amp may end up leaving many feeling less passionate than one with "color".  Perhaps one man's natural-sounding is another's imperfection.  Perfection may actually leave one less excited (amps).  But I get it since speakers and room nuances aren't going anywhere and total system matters.  No one ever "listens" to just an amp.
Nelson was a great designer a long time ago. Now, not so much. Not surprising, since he left the refining fire that is competitive commercial products long ago.
Have you folks seen what kind of sources he uses and speakers he outputs to these days?
My criticism of Pass stuff is that NP is quite open to the idea of designing complete series of amps to have a certain "flavor" and then offering a range of flavors to the consumer. 
I don't recall if it was in that review or somewhere else but I recently read that NP now says that his .8 series of amps have a significant deficit in their circuit design resulting in inferior sound that he has now corrected with a new circuit design. How does that make the .8 owners out there feel?