Erik Y U Gotta Hate!

Eric is on record saying he likes D’agostino amps....

So what makes D’agostinos amps so different from Pass Labs amps?

Read Dan’s quote below, especially the last sentence. It’s pretty much the same philosophy Pass uses. Yet, there’s no hate for D’agostino, no trolling threads, nothing.

If distortion is such a big deal to him, why doesn’t he troll tube amps?

https://www.stereophile.com/content/dan-dagostinos-progress-progression

D’Agostino: In Krell’s early days, our amplifiers were really based on sound. I listened to every one. Later on, we became a super-technical company where we [were] really interested in becoming the first to apply new, patented technologies to our amplifiers.

When we started this new company, I really wanted to express my love of music. Because I wanted the Momentum to sound like music, I designed it in a totally different fashion. There’s nothing in the Momentum that I used at Krell. It has higher distortion than what we made for Krell, but it’s made for sound. Oftentimes, something that sounds good doesn’t necessarily measure as well as something that’s made to measure.

Both Pass and D’agostino amps are designed with purpose, and that’s to achieve a certain sound (vs perfect measurements). I’ve already pasted comments above from D’agostino implying this.

Here’s the other side of it from Pass Labs via Hometheatrehifi.

https://hometheaterhifi.com/reviews/amplifier/pass-labs-xs-preamplifier-and-xs-300-pure-class-a-monoblock-power-amplifiers/

At 20 volts output, the B-A peak is at -42 dB. If I had just looked at the graph, but never heard the amplifier, I would have predicted some audible distortion. But it didn’t occur. Here is the reason. Pass Labs used extremely high quality parts, a massive power supply, and more than 100 output devices. They created the sound by changing a capacitor or resistor here and there, but these were not band aids to fix problems. They were there to create a pleasing sound, one that was similar to a Pure Class A triode power amplifier (50 watts) that they designed beforehand, and decided that they would build the Xs 300 to mimic that sound, but not be deficient in the bass or high frequencies.

This should answer your question what people like about Pass Labs (for the same reason someone would like D’agostino amps).