Pass amp paired with audio research pre?


 Wondering if anyone has had experience matching a pass labs amp with an audio research preamp. Do they make a good combination?  Thinking  about audio research reference 5SE matched to one of the X series pass amps. I have Harbeth 401.2 speakers...kind regards 
128x128fanotunes
My current amp is a music reference rm-100. 

I also have a newly refurbished Harmon Kardon Citation 2. Haven’t had the chance to listen to it yet…
@fanotunes
Any particular reason the preamp has to be ARC?


ARC does not recommend driving an amp with less than a 30K input impedance. Pass Lab X series amps are lower than that (22,000 ohms according to their owner's manual), so bass will suffer and distortion will be higher.

If I were you I would look elsewhere. There are balanced tube preamps out there that have no problem driving Pass Labs amps at all and as a result IMO sound better as well.


There is a standard for balanced line operation (a.k.a. 'AES48'). The standard is there to insure that balanced sources will work with balanced inputs on things like power amps. Most high end audio preamps don't support the standard; not sure if they don't know it exists or simply chose not to. But in a case like this it makes a difference- if ARC supported the standard then you could just plug and play. There are tube preamps that support the standard.


Another aspect of the balanced standard is that it is effective at eliminating interconnect cable artifacts. If you've ever heard two cables sound different, or heard of that phenomena, you know what I'm talking about. This means you don't have to spend a lot of money on the cable and you can run it much longer distances, although you get the benefit of balanced operation even if the cable is only 6 inches.


In case you think I'm slamming ARC I'm not; you were asking about whether it would work. They are not alone in not supporting the standard. I can't think of a good reason why not (sound quality isn't one of them) unless it was just too hard to do, something like that.
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I just sold an ARC Ref 3 that I used with a Pass Xa-25.  It was boring on rock, decent on jazz.
Thank you for the response!

boring on rock? Audio research can seem a bit thread bare sometimes. Is that what you’re referring to?