Pass Labs AMP’s- What is the best Pass Amp Sound for You from past 10 years

250.8 and XP22.

Demo'd a 250.5 for a short while, though not with a pass pre-amp.

Had the XP12 and 250.8 for a good 2.5 years, but then upgraded to the XP22.  XP12 and 250.8 were very good, the XP22 took things to great, and there was a pretty clear difference.  

I had the XP12 and 250.8 combo on a pair of DynAudio Contour 60's, Klipsch Epic CF4's (with a few upgrades), Ohm Walsh 5000's, and Salk SS12's (current speakers that I absolutely love).  I've had other speakers here on demo's.  It's very rare that the XP12 and 250.8 wasn't a nice combo.

Now the XP22 I've heard on the Walsh 5000's, Salk SS12's, Salk Song 3 encore's (friends), martin Logans (Friends), and a couple other demo's.

It's a great combo.  Great Midrange, excellent bass, and all the highs (without crazy brightness).  I did have a nice Levinson here for a while, and it may have had a shade more detail on the top end, but with a little more harshness in the mids.  I felt the Levinson might have been 10% or so tighter in the low end, but with not nearly the oomph.

I talked to a couple people with pass labs amps and they both felt the XA series is 'far superior' to the X series. For those of you who have compared, is this the case? I guess it depends on how demanding the speakers are but apparently the XA series has components and designs that are closer to the XS series and thus is a better performer.

Talking to pass about this they mentioned the X series may have a bit more bass control and more dynamics especially with harder to drive speakers where the XA series might have a more organic midrange and more detail.

I am the original owner of a Threshold 4000, and had it "updated" and recapped a while back by John Soderberg.  Still sounds great when being fed by a Herron Phono/LTA MicroZotl front end.  I would be interested to hear if any of you Pass-aficionados have any experience in comparing the 4000 with recent Pass amps?

I am a bit confused as to why some people believe the xa is better when often times the x series does not even leave class A to drive the speakers.

assuming the needle on your x series does not move much let alone go past noon position then you are in class A if I understand my conversation with kent english at pass correctly,

so if your speakers dont push the amp out of class A then essentially the x series is class A like the xa series.

my 260.8 monoblocks have 33 watts of class A and with my 40.2 harbeth speaker does not leave Class A (which is surprising given face that harbeth like power and I play relatively loud)

I was initially inclined to get xa60.8 monoblocks but was advised that the bigger harbeth were recommended by the distributor usa for harbeth to pair better with x series.

Has anyone heard the xa60.8 and 260.8 in same system and heard a difference? I can imagine in a big room or with speakers that are very demanding

@karmapolice, your point has much merit, but meters on gear such as this are almost never calibrated measuring devices, more often than not just glitzy toys serving as eye candy. Such meters rather than giving insight more often than not mislead.