Passlabs XA .5 vs Ayre MXR

I had mentioned a while back on an old thread that had auditioned the Ayre MXR's and thought they were ok, but no were as "musical" and lacked the liquidity of my Pass Labs XA-100's.

Of course personnal taste and system synergy are always going to alter what the listner experiences, but that was my experience at listening to the two sets of amps.

My experience with SS amps is that they are on the dry and cold side from reality. Since the XA100 is designed to be in the middle of SS and tube, do you find it tipping to the other side, being warmer and prettier than reality. Also do you have enough base in the music. I heard that the XA .5 series is a major improvement over the XA as well.

I think the .5 is a "major" improvement if you have speakers with unsmooth impedance curves with dips below 4ohms - the .5 is better able to handle that, with a speaker that is "tube" friendly I can't imagine much if any difference as they don't need huge current to run their best, they are made to sound good with tubes (the XA are more like tubes in that sense than the .5 - the follow a voltage paradigm). Don't know abouth this warm/cold divide, the XA30.5 sounded true in terms of timbre. Ultimatelyu I prefer tubes with my speakers becuase I like the soundstaging effects caused by tube distortion (more 3D and layered to my ears).

I have nothing bad to say at all about Pass, especially as I always really liked the older Alph amps Nelson made. However, having had the MXR's for almost two years (and the KRX since March of this year), I can heartily recommend them. The MXRs have been revelatory with my Vandersteen 5As. Obviously, there will always be a system synergy issue, and everyone has their own tastes, but I don't believe there to be any "solid state" sound or compromise to the MXRs at all. In fact, I know several MXR owners who were, before switching to the MXRs, die-hard tube amplifier owner/proponents, largely because of the generally dry/thin nature of solid state traditionally when compared with the best tube amps. Either way, at the level you are talking about, it is critical to have an in-home test drive of both units to see how they respond to your system and how you respond to them. Good luck and gool listening. - Pete -