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pass labs xa30.5 vs aleph 3

Stereophile reveiwer Erick Lichte has done a head to head review of these pass amps in August 2009 issue. Erick uses the aleph 3 as his main amp feeding a pair or Revel f30 speakers, he also uses Benchmark Dac1 to feed the alpeh as I do as well. He was asked to do a comparison between the pass amps as a follow up to the great reveiw of the xa30.5 which was reviewed by Brian Damkroger in which,I quote "absolutely, positively,and enthusiasticallly recommended" the xa30.5 and, Brian sounds like he perfers high powered amps in the review. In the review Erick thought the Xa30.5 sounded more resolving and a little bit better bass control and can sound louder than the 30 watts. It was leaner in the midbass than the aleph 3 but, had a slightly more presents in the top three octave. he still is in love with is aleph 3 and sound like he is not planning on replacing the aleph 3 with the xa30.5. Anyways I have been waiting for a head to head review of these pass amps since the xa30.5 was released. If anyone would like to see the head to head review send me an email and I will take a high res pictures of the artical and send it to anyone. Also Erick Lichte did a head to head review of the Musical Fidelity's 550k supercharger amp and the Aleph 3 in a December 2008 issue. He concluded the aleph sounded better than the 550's by itself. He then supercharged his aleph 3 but did not like the sound. Very interesting articals about my beloved aleph 3, and a great read for aleph 3 owners. In my opinion the aleph 3 is still a giant killer and is a legend when it comes to amps.
tiverson2000
jbarnett
2 posts
 
Earflappin, I have the Emerald Physics 2.3 speakers, which are 97dB and bi-amped. I am using a Wyred4Sound 250W ICE amp for the woofer (1000Hz on down) and the J2 / XA30.5 for the compression driver/mid (above 100Hz). My source is exclusively digital - iTunes (lossless) via an Apogee Ensemble firewire interface , which serves as DAC and preamp. This arrangement is provided by Clayton Shaw, founder of Emerald Physics and Spatial Computer. Without getting into analog vs digital and all of that, I'll just say that this system delivers music in a way that I have not heard on any other. Clayton's approach to Speaker and Room Correction Software is completely ear opening.

I too have been dealing with Mark at Reno HiFi. He is fantastic to work with. He had his reservations about the J2's power limitation too, but it sounds so good I am willing to sacrifice that little bit of extra volume on those rare occasions.

Thanks for the suggestion on the Atma-Spheres. I've heard lots of great things about them, but I just don't want to go the tube route. In fact, I just might wind up keeping my J2 and my XA30.5, I love them both so much.
earflappin
87 posts
 
Thanks Jbarnett. I have spoken with Clayton on several occasions and have deep respect for his speaker designs. I especially liked the evolution from the 2.0 to the 2.3. I almost bought the 2.3's in fact, but my current listening room forces the speakers to be within a foot of the front wall and even with room correction it seemed a bit of a stretch for the 2.3's. So, I went with the Dr. Geddes' Abbey speakers which also use a compression driver tweeter with a 12" waveguide and a 12" pro woofer, but in a sealed box so placement near the front wall is not an issue. The sound is to die for. I suspect it is similar to the 2.3's. Are you using the stock Behringer cross over?

I have a Zalman fanless PC running Windows 7 64 bit with an AES16PCI card going AES/EBU into a Berkeley Alpha DAC which also serves as my pre-amp. I use XXHighEnd as a software player which to my ears is better than iTunes. XXHighEnd is designed to turn off unnecessary software services and use a dedicated CPU core for playback. I am getting sound quality like you that I am simply amazed with even on CDRB.

I hear ya about the tubes....I had managed to avoid tube amps my entire audiophile career having owned Spectral, Halcro, Boulder, Linn SS amps. Now that I have my A-S OTL amp I must say that tubes are really not that much of a hassle. In fact, I kind of like the retro look of the A-S amps.

Oh well....that's what I love about this hobby....there are many ways to musical nirvana.
gundam91
506 posts
 
Ha, ha. Joined the party late. I just pulled my Pass Aleph Os from storage and plugged it into my system last night for a quick comparison against the X350.5.

The speakers are Verity Parsifal Encores.

It took the amp about 2-3 hours to finally warmed up and sound decent. I need to go back and read the August article. But I am getting the same impressions as what has been said so far.

I had some long discussion with Verity when I first bought the speakers. They said that I did not need very much power to drive these speakers. But when I initially tried both amps, I was attributing the different sound charateristics to the fact that the X350.5 had more power, and thus, better control of the speakers.

FrankC
pubul57
3,712 posts
 
Earflappin, have you, or has anyone else done the upgrade from 3.0 to 3.1. It does not seem expensive. I do wonder what the changes are internally and how the perfomance changes, improves? with the upgrade. Hmmm, maybe this should be a new thread?
earflappin
87 posts
 
Pubul57, yes, I just had my M-60's upgraded from 3.0 to 3.1. My understanding is that the upgrade involves an evolution of the voltage amplification circuit which reduces distortion by 95% at full power. The improvement was not subtle to my ears. More transparency, detail and fluidity in the presentation. Easily the best bang for buck upgrade I've ever made to my system. I highly recommend it.
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