Short List of Amps I prefer over the Pass Labs XA25 or INT 25

I owned the Pass XA25 for several months and had a chance to compare it against some other amps. The original question asks which, if any, do you "prefer" over it. Any answer to that question is going to depend on at least two variables: your personal tastes and your speakers. Amps will sound different when driving different loads.
In the end I preferred the Parasound Halo amps. In my case it was the A21. I auditioned several amps and what I heard always boiled down to a judgment between transparency vs dynamics. Yes, the Pass was more transparent than the Parasound. However, the Parasound provided considerably greater punch and rhythmic drive and offered decent musicality to boot. In the end, this simply reflected my personal taste, and I might have felt differently had I been using different speakers. The impedance of the speakers I use drops down to about 2.8 ohms in the low end and requires an amp with a really beefy power supply and a lot of current to sound good.
Interestingly, purely in terms of musicality the amp I liked the most was the Yamaha A-S2100 integrated. However, it sounded even more anemic than the Pass in terms of dynamic drive, not that the Pass sounded anemic. These are all relative assessments.

Cal,

I started on the First Watt path. Then I saw an review of the Cheviots
in which both a SIT3 and an XA25 were used. He said the SQ jumped
very noticeably with the XA25. That's a pretty close comparison to
my system. Also the thing which got me interested in Class A was
after buying a used pair of Pass diy monoblocks. 7 wpc. They are not bad
for the $350 I spent. The F4's are certainly much better than the set
I have. I could save a bundle buying the diy pack if still offered. Problem
is at this stage I am more looking for SQ than a cheaper out. 
I have a limit of $5k for this. Thanks again the fine ideas.

Huffy,
You had me til Yamaha...

April Fools!!!

The only amp from Yamaha that was any good, and that was for only bass duties was the P2200.

Cheers George

Have any of you compare the pass amp with Bedini 25/25 100/100 ? For 1/3 prices of pass amp , I’m happy with my Bedini , I also have Yamaha as2100 , mx1 and they are not far behind but I prefer Bedini