Aegir upgrade to Pass...maybe

Even with the newer driver?  Selenium D405

I'm always kind of puzzled at these kinds of comparisons.  Comparing amps that differ so wildly in price is really useless, for the most part. 

A person with $800 to spend will not find anything better than the Aegir, sound quality wise(probably even up to $2000), although pairing to a difficult load may be its achilles heel.(Their other products perform the same, double the price to find their equal in the retail marketplace)

Someone who has 7 times that budget, or $4900(which appears to be the Pass XA25 retail) will get compromised results by stooping to the Aegir, and typically people with that kind of money do not accept a neutered result. 

So there would be no surprises to compare the two amps side by side.  OF COURSE the Pass will supersede the Aegir.  We don't need a comparison to tell us that.

The attraction to the Aegir is how much over the top bang for buck you get for 799.  I've only got the Vidar, and I'm seriously impressed with how easily it bests my other amps. The Aegir is even better than that, and it was Schiit Audio's first amp product to make Stereophile's recommended list, and mediocre products do not make the list.

But if you've got the budget, Pass Labs is in another league.  Nobody wants to play in the minor leagues if they don't have to.  Well, almost nobody.

I noticed somebody else had the "shut off" issue with the Aegir which alleviated my worries that it was maybe my subs connected to the speaker outputs being an issue, although it's never been an issue with other amps. The subs (RELs) load very high impedance (100,000 ohms or maybe 50,000 as I use two) onto the amp which should have virtually zero effect on the thing. An amp that kicks in a protection circuit with 99db speakers is useless to me as it would seem to be putting out maybe 10 watts when playing very loud (louder than I need or seem to ever use), and would appear to have overprotective protection. I had high hopes for the Aegir, but now simply assume the Pass XA25 is down the road...maybe...

@tvad

made in usa quality!!! lol!!!

mike moffatt may be a genius component designer but he could use some good old fashioned manufacturing quality control...