Advice on Class A Amp or Integrated please

The Pass XA-30 has not been released. The lowest power XA series amp in production are the XA-60 monoblocks.

The XA-30 will be a one chassis stereo amplifier.

Why not look in your own backyard? Plinius is manufactured in New Zealand, and has some fine sounding Class A amps.

John

I have used Pass and Sugden, Pass are just wonderful sounding amps, not integrated of course. The Aleph series are quite cheap now, if ugly brutes(Borg cubes). Just pick your output, the 3 at 30watts, going up to 100watts maximum. To state the obvious, more power gives you more flexibilty. Sugden are similarly warm but detailed, just a great fit and forget choice. If you want an integrated, the 21 is a good choice, but only about 25watts, maybe not enough. The more powerful masterclass series will give you a great result.
On a general point, some companies go on making quality good value products year in and year out, Pass and Sugden are 2 examples. I can't think of a bad product either of them have ever produced.
On another general point, I think it is always good to have a bit more power than you need. I bought a Lavardin IT(another great SS integrated by the way), to match my Living Voice Avatars, which they did, now I have changed to slightly less sensitive Acoustic Zen Adagios, still a great match, but I think I need a bit more power

Look at it this way: all other things being equal (which they aren't exactly):
1) You should choose an amp that correlates best to yr spkr design (BTW, which Reynaud?). Any other solution is a compromise.
Buying an amp "for the future" means that you will choose the "future" spkrs according to the amp -- any other success story is purely fortuitous.
2) Being situated were you are (what a magical place to live in!) experiments are counter-indicated, as you note.

3) CHeck yr spkrs' impedance plot (it MUST be available s/where), and note where the impedance drops and where it rises. Any SS amp (esp. class A) will increase its amperage provision as the impedance goes down (hence the supplied energy/Watts, of course) and decrease as impedance goes up. This means that the freq band corresponding will be slightly louder or less so, accordingly.

4) A tube amp (class A) will TYPICALLY perform in symmetrically opposite fashion.

5) In order to surpass yr present amp 40W would be indicated to achieve +20dB spl levels over yr spkrs' reference sensitivity, and that's a reasonable target.

Class A is also a good option as it requires a sizeable PS in SS designs, at least 4x the spec'd energy output -- which means enough current to drive most speakers well. Mind you, this will also show up in yr electricity bill!

Very general comments:
Pass is on the warm side of neutral, Accuphase is neutral with very good rendition of detail in mid-high and high frequencies. Pass' Aleph series was quite good and should adequately power yr spkrs -- albeit not any louder than yr present amp.

Ultimately: are there no manufacturers in NZ you might contact? IMO proximity and the possibility of showing them yr spkrs' specs, are very useful alternatives to buying blind -- whatever we tell you. Unless of course s/one has yr spkrs and has experimented extensively with amps... Cheers