Pass Labs amps and Avantgarde speakers

The new Pass Labs XA30.8 sounds EXCELLENT with the Avantgarde Duo Omegas. It is simply not possible to get any better than this that I can imagine.

I tried a 10 watt amp and I have to say... folks who use less than 20 watts for Duo's are simply not doing them justice. They send very anemic and simply cannot keep up and higher volumes such as electronic music, rock, or movies.

I am seriously toying with the idea of the Trios ... just not sure if I want to blow that much money yet...

I tried a 10 watt amp and I have to say... folks who use less than 20 watts for Duo's are simply not doing them justice. They send very anemic and simply cannot keep up and higher volumes such as electronic music, rock, or movies.

10 watts is more than enough power for any Avantgarde speaker. The meters of my Accuphase A-65 power amp (which are very accurate) show that very often I use less than 0.01 watts, i.e. less than a hundredth of a watt. This is actually the problem, very many amps are not design to play music properly in the centi or milli-watt regimes. It is like expecting a car to operate at optimal parameters when driving it between 0.05 and 0.5 miles per hour.

I agree with Nvp, with this speaker you're using mere fractions of a watt the
vast majority of the time. The quality of the first watt is what you hear.
Preference is of course subjective taste. Chadeffect owns this brand's Trio
speaker and has used many different amplifiers and chose the 2 watt
Yamamoto 45 tube SET. Does that mean it's better than the Pass amp? No,
it a matter of individual preference and desired goals/ sound . I'd probably
prefer the Yamamoto over the Pass amplifier but naturally there are others
who would choose the Pass, it just depends.
Charles,

I would definitely use a small SET tube amp on those speakers.

To say that one needs 20 wpc on 107dB sensitive Duos is...misinformed. I can run mine on 3.5 wpc 2A3 amps with plenty of headroom; it's just that qualitatively the Lamms are the best I've heard to date, at 18 wpc.