@hilde45
Having long wanting to do comparison of top notch solid state pre to my Coincident Statement (MkII upgrade, along with some of my own mods) I recently purchased Pass XP22. I had a chance to extensively compare the two, and experimented with various platforms, footers, power cords, IC's, in other words voiced Pass for best performance with my setup.
So, my final analysis after 3 months comparison. The only two area in which the Pass excelled over Coincident was slightly more extension on top and occasionally I had the sense of slightly more details at certain frequencies, such as words being more easily discernible on some recordings, this not consistent? In spite of this I never thought the Pass to be more resolving or having a lower noise floor. And the easily heard superior transparency of the Coincident trumped whatever advantage Pass may have had there. Its like information vs sense of real live performers in room. As others have mentioned tube vs ss sound staging and imaging also differ, Coincident had more air around performers, this along with precise image placement, Pass did this very well, just sharper outlines around performers. They were aprox. equal in sound stage and image size, both first rate. I actually preferred the bass from Coincident, more tuneful while remaining articulate, bass was perhaps the most problematic issue I had with Pass, really had to experiment with platforms, footers and power cords to approach bass performance of Coincident. One note or sense of thudding, inarticulate bass was there with certain setups, have to say I brought this under control with correct setup, still never quite on par with Coincident. As for tonality, timbre, Pass really close to replicating Coincident in ability to humanize recordings, I can't imagine any SS doing this better than the Pass. I believe this has long been one of the aspects of Pass equipment that people rave about, I concur.
All in all, at the end I was quite taken by the Pass, in the context of a SS unit. I've not had much success with SS since getting into SET amps and pre's. For me the minimalist approach of small parts count, boutique parts voiced for my particular setup, and point to point wiring provide a transparency or performers in room sensation I can't get with either push pull tube or SS amps and pre's.
In presentation, Pass took me to recording venue, Coincident brings performers into my room. Again, I'd say this more SET vs SS in my particular setup vs. tubes vs SS in general. Based on my recollection of past non SET tube pre's I've owned the Pass outperformed them in probably every parameter other than 3D imaging, sense of air around individual images that tubes in general do so well.
Pass also excelled in build quality, massive and solid, well organized circuit boards, soldering top notch, I'd expect great reliability. While this may sound like faint praise, I'd evaluate the Pass as really top notch SS pre, I could see it being preferable to tube pre's in some systems.
