Pass Labs XA30.5 or ARC VS115 is better

Pass XA30.5 is measured to clip at 130wpc into 8 ohm and 200wpc into 4 ohm. One sweet sounding amp. But if you use ARC pre, ARC amp might be a better match in terms of tonal balance.

I've had both amps in house...my choice was/is the 30.5 and I'm a tube (triode) lover.

Hi Onemug,
I love 'directly heated triode' tubes also.Are you saying you find class A SS more natural than pentode tubes in class AB ultra linear mode in general or just specificaly between these two amplifiers, or am I misunderstanding you?
Regards,

I'd choose Pass.

Charles1dad,

A lot depends on the speaker and who's class A amp and who's pentode amp. I was being specific to the op's amps, I favor that ss over that tube amp "big" time. Been a fan of Nelson Pass for a long time. I think he's done extremely well with his XA.5 series.

I've heard/owned many nice pp pentode amps over the years but after listening to DHT's now for some time, I doubt I would become interested in one (my Marantz 8b is proving to be an exception). I did find happiness in a pp 300b....I got myself 30 watts and that 300b aroma.

One of my favorite quotes from Nelson is:

"I find about a third of the people preferring 2nd order distortion, a third of the people preferring 3rd order and the other third liking neither or both. People have also been known to change their minds."

To bad some people have to get into "heated" debates about what is best rather than just let people enjoy what they like.