Parasound to Pass Upgrade


I’m considering “upgrading” from my Parasound JC-1s monos to the Pass Labs X260.8 mono blocks. Does anyone have any experience or opinions on the performance differences I would expect? Thanks very much. 
Rob

taylorro

I think only people who have owned Pass amps would be qualified to comment on how much heat they make, how they sound etc. (some comments here suggest the member is making an educated guess). I have a Pass 250.8 running Sasha 2 (with a Pass xp10 pre) in a 13 x23 dedicated listening room. Highly musical, powerful and smooth- I listen to jazz, funk, fusion. Contrary to what some people have said here, I'll confirm - the amp def runs hot and consumes 400 watts when powered on and idling. Much more when actually reproducing music. The room has no heat or AC and is in the basement. In the winter months the room gets down to 58 overnight. Within an 1-2 hours, with the amp on, the room is 68 and will hit 70. The rest of the year the room starts at 64 in the morning and when running the amp for a couple of hours it'll hit 72, sometimes 74. You can take a guess what these numbers would be if there were TWO big Pass amps running - 800 watts or more just at idle for starters. I have a pair of Bel Canto REF 600 m I pop into the system in July and August as they make no heat....I LOVE the Pass 250.8 and encourage anyone to consider their amps. The few I've had have all sounded great and work well with a wide variety of speakers I've had- Maggies, Cornwall 4, Focal 1038 BE, Sopra 2, Harbeth 30.2, SHLS5 Super, Sabrina and now Sasha 2.

First of all, I owned a x350 for over ten years__ granted in a fairly large room… but it never got more than warm. And some of you have $10K amplifiers and no air conditioning? Seriously?

Lots of talk about “heat” and “warm”. Really?… Decent amps have heat and if you don’t think they do then they’re junk. Anyway I’ve had Parasound amps and love them.  They’re warm and quite subtle but consistent and priced well below their potential… 

To: @taylorro Have you thought about pairing up a really good TUBE preamp with your existing JC-1 monos?

Maybe trying this first as a go-between option.  Apparently not uncommon for people to do with JC-1s.   I use a tube preamp with my Pass/Forte' Class A amp, and would not have it any other way. 

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/tube-preamp-recommendations-please-to-partner-with-parasound-jc-1-s

 

I had an XA25 which is class A and it sounded amazing and it ran hot, not warm. 

 

jh