What are the weak points of Pass amps and pre-amps ?
Though there are perhaps better transistor amps, but Pass seems to be an excellent choice for many. What is your experience with them, if you could elaborate ? Integrateds as well.
The weak point is the cover. Tried standing on one and it caved right in. I was holding a Wilson Watt Puppy at the time. So that really was it after all.
My only experience with Pass gear are the Aleph 3 and Aleph 2's I had many years ago. IMO, both were great sounding and when I decided to downsize I preferred the VTL MB125 just a bit more than the Aleph 2's I had at the same time.
The Aleph 3 I sold a bit prior.
I feel the Alephs get you real close to quality tubed gear territory without actual tubes in play.
Earlier Nelson Pass Amps, particular Threshold used Bi-Polar output stages that had far higher current ability, which allowed them to drive lower impedance speakers without strain or current limiting like todays Pass Labs Mosfet output stage ones can. But Mosfets are more "bomb proof" than Bi-Polars, if the owner did something stupid and momentarily shorted the output or overloaded the input.
Pass are great amps in the right system or personal tastes. I jumped on the bandwagon several months ago and purchased a X150.8. My 1st impressions were, powerful, dynamic, very nice looking amp, clean crisp sound but lacked in midrange richness. I changed tubes in my preamp to help with some midrange energy I was experiencing even with Sonus Faber Olympica iii. It helped but overall I couldn't warm up to the amp. Hated to sell and wanted to like this amp but just couldn't get it to work in my system. YMMV. Overall it's a very good amp and compared to pricier products it's a no brainer. Extremely well built and affordable.
I've bought and sold a number of amps over the years. Pass is one of the few I regretted selling in hindsight and the only one I reacquired, moving up from the INT-60 to the INT-250. I thought it might be overkill for my 100db efficiency speakers, but the data retrieval, dynamics, soundstage, bass grip, etc. is excellent in my system, my room and to my ears.
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