Pass X350.5 or Krell 302e?

Krell FPB Mc series. I really liked the musical sound, but the stage was not the strongest part. Pass Labs gives a different focus on the sound of instruments. I am not talking about the stage. The Krell is more focussed on the overwhole sound. There are many Krell amp's I auditioned which were not that convincing or special. I sold my XA100.5 to a client with puppy7 sepakers. Was the best puppy audition I ever heared. I also auditoned more average demo's with Wilson Audio speakers. Often acoustic problems. Many had Krell amp's. The acoustic problems were not caused by the Krell amp's.

I own the Pass Labs X250.5 which drives my Wilson Duettes in the dining room and the Krell Evo 2250e which drives my Spendor STs in the bedroom. The VTL 7.5iii is the preamp for both. They are two very different sounding amps. In a room where the accoustics are not challenging I prefer the Pass to the Krell. The Pass has an wide soundstage, and excells in the mid-range, goes very deep in the bass and does not sound like a SS amp. The Krell is more analytical has better imaging and air around the notes and instruments and the bass is so well controlled that it sounds good in any room environment. I tried the x250.5 in my bedroom, which absorbs sounds and the whole soundstage flattened and lost transparency, the Krell was largely unaffected by the room. I am using the same interconnects and speaker cables with both amps. Both amps will benefit significantly from an upgraded power cable. I hope this helps.

I use a Purist Audio Limited 2013 powercable of 4000 dollar. It is a lot of money but I add's new qualities to all the parts were you Judge an amp for. I often do a-b comparissons between an map or source with a less expensive cable and a less expensive amp or source with a much more expensive powercabels. Most of the time people choose for the more expensive powercable and less expensive source/amp during blind audition.. Many people expect that the more expensive amp/source will be better.

I disagree about a Pass Labs amp sounding broken on a Wilson Sasha. My buddy has Sashas and when I hauled my XA160.5s to his house and hooked them into his system, IMO the Sashas never sounded better.

In fact, I've never heard a Pass amp sound "broken" in any system in which it was paired with appropriate speaker loads.

The ".5" version is a major improvement over the standard X or XA models.

I don't have any experience with Krell amps.

@ Bo1972, Hi, not to be funny here, but if my soundstage of my Krell amp got eany bigger, it would knock my house walls out!this krell amp also has a very, very deep soundstage and I can hear more than two acoustic guitars at once, try multiple guitars at once on the same recording, like you are there at the musical performance, and I am forreal serious about what I am saying here, I suppose the caliber of cables helps that I own, you can say I am getting the full glory out of this Krell modded FPB 700cx amp, what I mean by modded is Krell put all new caps of todays technology in that was not available when the amp was manufactured, that was $3,157.38 of an up-grade!, cheers.