I had the Pass XA60.8's driving the Focal Sopra II and they were more than enough to make them sing with no strain at all. Pair them with a tube preamp to tame the slight brightness that Focal's are known for.
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More than enough. You’re unlikely to push the amps beyond Class A. And even if you do these amps have enough headroom in A/B to tickle your eardrums.
I’m using X260.8 monos with Wilson Sabrina that are notoriously difficult to drive and I almost never see the bias meters move, which means I’m in the 35w Class A range.
Good luck!
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I have a pair of the XA60.8's driving Paradigm Persona 7F's, sligtly less sensitive than your FSU's. I'm very happy with the amplifiers and I'm confident they will have no issue driving your speakers.
Caution: your room is relattivly small and the XA60.8"s run very warm! I am a fan of the Tube Pre-Amp pairing, that combination will also add to a noticable increase room temperature. If you're buying new, I would reccomend purchasing from a dealer that will grant a 30 day return, just in case.
Best of luck!!
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It’s not the power that is not enough. It’s just your purchasing amplifiers that are way under the quality of your speakers.
Those Focal speakers deserve better!
Try AGD amps instead or a used Burmester 911 mk3 or DartZeal
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Agree with @pennfootball71 your speakers deserve better. Maybe a Soulution amp? Bricasti M28’s? Or Gryphon. So many choices. Yes Pass are good but....
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@audiophile1
I’m using X260.8 monos with Wilson Sabrina that are notoriously difficult to drive and I almost never see the bias meters move, which means I’m in the 35w Class A range.
34 class A Watts into 8 ohms and about half that into the 4 ohms Sabrinas. I asked Pass about this when I was interested in the 260.8 monos for my 4 ohms Maggie 3.7’s.
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The references above to the X260's is somewhat misleading as the X amps are a Class AB design but biased into Class A at low powers, as opposed to the XA amps which are Class A designs. However, it is worth noting that the maximum power output of the XA 60.8s is well above their nominal rating. John Atkinson measured 150w into 8 ohms, 240w into 4 ohms and 380w into 2 ohms. From personal experience, they will not feel short of power in a small room.
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Pass labs uses mid grade capacitors and decent parts but very old old old old circuit designs where they focus the most on the first watt. They won’t give you the dynamics of more sophisticated circuit designs.
They won’t have as much grip with lower depending factor than Burmester.
They won’t sound as musical as AGD and won’t have the air on top of soulution or DartZeal. The 50 watt class a Gryphon Essence would be perfect as well. It is class A and doesn’t run out of gas as the pass labs will. It also will sound more accurate with better tone, texture, dynamics and air with more microdynamics and less color of pass labs house sound.
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Think of pass labs as a 1980’s Mercedes S class and the more modern amps like BMW M4 Competition Xdrive coupes.
you don’t need a Ferrari or hyper car to get 95% out of your speakers but that old Benz will be surPass labs and will be less than capable.
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Agree with your analogy but most in this hobby and especially at your level look to get another 1% maybe 2% and if lucky 3-4% improvement out of their next upgrade. You asked the question and have choices.
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BMW M4Competition Xdrive= Heavy, Complicated, and Ugly.
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@willyht You never drove a new M4 so you don’t have a frame of reference.Look up the drag races on youtube.
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A test drive can't cure heavy and ugly. Progress is often found with a return to simplicity.
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Swede…34w into 8ohm and half that into 4? Did you mean to say double that into 4? These amps double their power into 4ohm load so it’s 520 watts per channel into Sabrinas…I would assume it’s 68w into 4ohm in Class A…no?
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@audiophile1 No it’s half that (approx 17w) into 4 ohms. I’ve asked Pass and other manufacturers.
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Interesting. And even more interesting is how loud that actually is.
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@audiophile1 I understand nada about this but here it is: The power output in class A: P=R*I^2=R*4*Iq^2
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I enjoy XA60.8 monoblocks into a far less efficient speaker than yours, Joseph Audio Perspective2 Graphene, the combination is effortless, detailed, dynamic and certainly plenty powerful for my listening pleasure... I haven’t read a poor review, in fact reviewers seem to agree these Pass Labs are amongst the finest ever!
My room 17’ 8" L x 15’ W x 9’ H 265 sq ft area 2,285 sq ft volume
Regarding heat generation, the XA60.8 do run warm as most performance gear does. Mine are tucked to the side using ideal 1m cable runs for power and speaker. Also by the time summer cooling and winter heating are balanced you really do not notice the extra BTUs.
Enjoy!
p.s. those making arguments for large, overweight, heavily advertised modern German two door luxo snort coupes is telling
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Thanks for your replies and especially for your great recommendations. Pennfootball71 and rsf507 convinced me to look at other brands that would be more appropriate. I ended up buying a Nagra Classic Amp (100w per channel, first ten watts in class A). The agility, punch and clarity of this amp are absolutely outstanding. My wife and I left Montreal on Thursday at 4:30am to pick up a used unit in the Toronto area. It's a dealer trade in unit, less than 5 years old in 10/10 condition: $14k CAD. I could even bridge it into dual monoblocks, but according to the modulometer, the current output power is more than enough for my needs.
Thanks again everyone!
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Congrats on the purchase!
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