Gone are the audiophile adjectives, along with all barriers to musical reproduction. What remains is beautiful, clean, rich, majestic, energetic, palpable, live, natural music.
I understand Rtn1. My question was half in jest. A couple of new XS owners are really excited over at WhatsBestForum. I hear Pass is selling a good number of these despite the issues you mention. The sound must be quite something.
Rtn1, Any yearning for the new Pass Xs amps? Your XA200.5 must be amazing, but it seems to me that fans like you are perhaps the target for the new super amps. Rockitman just got a pare of the Xs150 to replace his XA100.5. I'm looking forward to his review.
I enjoyed your latest Youtube videos and the music. Thanks.
Thanks Rtn1. There is nothing like live orchestral music to compare one's system's quality to. I don't doubt your estimate as to it's ability to sound real. I started a thread on this very topic in the speaker forum with some interesting contributions. Check it out and again, congratulations on your incredible system.
FYI, Jonathan Valin commented on the AV Guide site in his Magico Q5 blog about his thoughts of Class A SS amps, the Pass XA.5, in particular in a question I asked him about the X.5 versus the XA.5. To him, big class A amps sound dark and a bit restricted and he much prefers class AB. I'm with you on the sound of these XA.5. Very special indeed.
I've enjoyed reading about your system and especially those new amps as I own the XA160.5. I think the new Pass gear is really special.
Your sentence "It's taking my system beyond what I thought possible." is very interesting to me. I have been comparing my system to live orchestral sound at the Boston Symphony Orchestra lately and consider that to be the ultimate reference. Though my system sounds fairly convincing on smaller scale chamber and vocal, it can not match the scale, dynamics and clarity of a live symphony. I don't know if audio systems will ever sound like that. Do you listen to much live music and have you compared your digital to a really good analog front end? I ask because a good friend who also listens to live music a lot recently asked me how close great systems sound to the real thing.
