Pass Labs amps and Avantgarde speakers

You might want to have a listen to TRON, a bespoke UK valve amplifier company. Graham Tricker, the designer, distributes AG in the UK and has designed his amplifiers specifically to run with AG and other high efficiency horns. He has a distributor in Heggedal, Norway

http://www.x3mhc.no/

I use a TRON Voyager to drive my AG Duos and am extremely happy. The TRON sounds great and it has zero circuit noise - so it’s silent unlike some valve amps with AGs. If his current amps are too expensive, he is planning to launch a new lower cost 300B SET called the Atlantic at Munich in May.

I've tried 300B and 2A3 amps with my Duo Omegas - both far outclassed by the Lamm ML2. Even at 107dB sensitivity and with powered subs, the Lamms make a huge difference in bass performance (taken at speaker level, not line level), musical flow, depth, ease.

The new Pass Labs XA30.8 sounds EXCELLENT with the Avantgarde Duo Omegas. It is simply not possible to get any better than this that I can imagine.

I tried a 10 watt amp and I have to say... folks who use less than 20 watts for Duo's are simply not doing them justice. They send very anemic and simply cannot keep up and higher volumes such as electronic music, rock, or movies.

I am seriously toying with the idea of the Trios ... just not sure if I want to blow that much money yet...

I tried a 10 watt amp and I have to say... folks who use less than 20 watts for Duo's are simply not doing them justice. They send very anemic and simply cannot keep up and higher volumes such as electronic music, rock, or movies.

10 watts is more than enough power for any Avantgarde speaker. The meters of my Accuphase A-65 power amp (which are very accurate) show that very often I use less than 0.01 watts, i.e. less than a hundredth of a watt. This is actually the problem, very many amps are not design to play music properly in the centi or milli-watt regimes. It is like expecting a car to operate at optimal parameters when driving it between 0.05 and 0.5 miles per hour.

I agree with Nvp, with this speaker you're using mere fractions of a watt the
vast majority of the time. The quality of the first watt is what you hear.
Preference is of course subjective taste. Chadeffect owns this brand's Trio
speaker and has used many different amplifiers and chose the 2 watt
Yamamoto 45 tube SET. Does that mean it's better than the Pass amp? No,
it a matter of individual preference and desired goals/ sound . I'd probably
prefer the Yamamoto over the Pass amplifier but naturally there are others
who would choose the Pass, it just depends.
Charles,