Which preamp for a pass labs?

mizioa
Which preamp for a pass labs?

Try a Schiit Freya for a trial period, it’s got all the flavours, passive, solid state, and tube switchable while your listening, your bound to find the right combo for your system.

It also has SE or XLR inputs and outputs, the best volume pot there is, a 128 relay switched, even has a remote.

It’s not a glitzy show piece, but it’s got what counts, under the hood, at a very reasonable cost. $699 it's a steal.
http://www.schiit.com/products/freya

Cheers George

I was looking to upgrade from my former Modwright 9.0 SE and took home an ARC LS25 MkII and overall preferred the Modwright. Took the ARC back and ended up with a Modwright LS 36.5 which works great with my Pass X250. The ARC was a fine preamp but just didn’t excite me much like the Modwright’s do. Clear Days balance is a great cable especially for the money. Still have Clear Days but prefer my Wywires Silvers now.

If I had to choose between an ARC LS 25 Mk2 andd a Pass Labs XC-10 (or -12), I'd get a Herron Audio VTSP-360.  Smokes both and takes no prisoners.  No point in using "balanced cables" since they do nothing at all to improve the quality of a standard 2-conductor.  All the "balanced" hype is pure BS. 

All the "balanced" hype is pure BS.

It has it's place with long runs of interconnect >10mts for less noise.

But you are more right than you know, when you say it's BS.
  
As many sources, preamps and poweramps with balanced inputs or outputs are fake!!
In that they are single ended topology circuits, with just an opamp on the input or output to make them have balanced inputs or outputs.

All along you'll get better sound using the single ended inputs or outputs on these because then you are bypassing those opamp/s.

Cheers George   

Actually at this level these components are balance from input to output. There is no balanced to single conversion going on. Both the LS25 and the Pass X amps are meant to be run balanced but will work with a single ended connection. But that's really kind of a waste of what these components can do. If you run the LS25 single ended you're literally only running one half of the preamp.

If you're going this route go buy good XLR cables even for short runs. I agree a lot of components are single ended internally but not the ARCLS25 or Pass amps. Otherwise you'd be better served with components that are meant to be used single ended. It's part of the reason these boxes cost what they cost.