Thinking of buying a solid state amp

Larry, you have a good point. The new location will be smaller but not significantly smaller to warrant a lower power amp. Heat is the major issue, ambient temperature there is in the 90+ degree 6 months out of a year with high humidity and the thought of turning on two big tube amps is daunting.

I like BAT tube sound, but from what I read Pass X.5 or XA.5 has an edge over BAT SS and that's why I am leaning toward Pass if I was to go SS only.

I have limited exposure to Rowland 501. Like what Guidocorona pointed out, my negative impression of Rowland 501 was probably due to break in time. I will give BC or NuForce a chance and this time around I will make sure they are fully broken in.

Karan's having a sliding class A circuit, so they are barely warm to the touch.

Pass Labs put out significant heat while they idle. They sound good when fully powered-on for at least several hours. My A/C could not keep up during the summer when I had the x600.5. The 350.5 is 1/2 the heat of the 600.5, but it still alot of heat (think 6 - 100 watt light bulbs).

Class D - try before you buy. This is a very polarizing topic, as you are well aware.

Semi, the Rowland 501 is a slightly older design. By itself it may be a little 'cool' sounding compared to BC Ref 1Kmk.2 monos. To perform at their best the 501 monos require a pair of the new Rowland PC-1 rectifiers. . . the sonic difference should be significant, but a pair of PC-1s also adds a non indifferent $3K to the cost of the 501 monos. BTW, never connect PC-1s to Bel canto or NuForce amps. . . you will blow the amps. PC-1 is to be used only with amps set to 240V operations, or amps that have universal autosense and autoranging switch mode power supplies. G.

Very nice sounding Class D amps:

http://www.iceh2oaudio.com/index_htm.html

I have heard these driving Apogee Scintillas (1 ohm load) and they sounded very musical (detailed but not at all hard or bright).

I personally don't think that ANY solid state amp sounds like a tube amp, though, many do, nonetheless, sound good to me. The true Class A solid state amps will also run hot, so they may be out of the running. Some of the brands of solid state amps that I personally like, though I would not call them warm sounding, include Ayre, Belles, Dartzeel (quite pricey). The older, non-Class D Rowlands were quite warm sounding, though a bit dynamically dull for my taste.

If you really like the sound of the BAT tube gear, you should at least give there solid state stuff a listen to, regardless of what others may think of how it compares to other gear. To a large extent, the sound of gear is "voiced" by the designer, so the same designer would have similar sounding gear even if the designs are radically different.

I've only heard early iterations of the Bel Canto and Rowland Class-D amps, and neither sounded very good to me. But, I am sure the technology has advanced considerably, so you should certainly consider them, particularly because of their low power consumption and very low heat dissipation.

Good luck in your search.