looking for truly transparent affordable amp s

Second the Liberty B2B-100. I've had the likes of Bryston and McCormack amps among others in my system that were very good, but the Liberty was the most clear and transparent amp I've had in my system. Also, it's imaging and 3D soundstage capabilities are outstanding I think in large part due to the amps overall clarity and complete absence of veils. I bet it could paint some remarkable soundscapes with your time/phase coherent Herons. Given what you say you're looking for I can't see you going wrong, and I think Liberty offers a two week trial period so there's little risk in trying one at home. The only other amp I've had that rivaled the Liberty in these areas was the Rogue Medusa -- in fact the two sounded eerily similar in my system, but it's also more expensive. Best of luck.

Beavis---my SET amp is 45w into an 8 ohm load and it drives the custom speakers to perfection unlike the similarly powered gainclones I've tried. I have been interested in the Decware amps but, aside from the more pricey monoblocks, find them all under powered for my speakers. And I've read that SET is more transparent than PP. Any experience comparing the two? I was told OTL also compares favorably to SET but know nothing about OTL amps.

And a few have mentioned the Class D amps. I did have a Wyred 4 Sound ST-500 a couple of years ago, living with it as my primary amp for about 6 months going from a 45w SET using 805 & 300B tubes to the Wyred ST-500 to a pair of bridged Pathos Classic One MKIII and can say that the Wyred amp was considerably less transparent/detailed than either. The ST-500 was compared to the Bel Canto monoblocks favorably and these were held up as Class D champs a few back so I'm not to keen on the Class D options. Does anyone know if the newer Class D amps are better?

Tjassoc---I'd love to try the mentioned Pass amp but it's just not powerful enough, at least that would be my expectation and $3000 is a lot for me to spend on something not likely to do the job. Still, I'd love to hear it in my system. Makes me wonder if I shouldn't pursue a high efficiency speaker...... thanks for the recommendation

And regarding the Krell KAV250---many good comments about this amp. I haven't heard the KAV250 but did have a KSA 100S several years ago. Great sounding amp though too upfront for my taste but ,compared to an Alternate Audio CA 100 (similar to the Pass Aleph amps), it fell flat on its face with regards to transparency and the most subtle of inner detail. Any idea how the KAV250 compares to the KSA 100S or even to the Aleph series of Pass amps?

Many thanks to all who have taken the time to offer advice and recommendations.

Decware owner Steve Deckert is very accessible, good to talk to & is unlikely to give bad advice & they offer a lifetime warranty to original purchaser. Unique qualities in my experience.

Lcherepkai,

Not trying to sway you one way or the other but your comment regarding the Pass XA30.5 and power is a common misconception. Not sure why Pass doesn't try harder to set this straight. The following is from the measurements section of the Stereophile review.

"Fig.4 shows how the THD+noise percentage in the amplifier's output varies with output power into 8, 4, and 2 ohms. While the XA30.5 may give 30Wpc into 8 ohms in class-A (14.8dBW), the distortion at this power level is low, at 0.015%. The amplifier doesn't actually clip (defined as the THD reaching 1%) until a much higher power level: 130Wpc into 8 ohms (21.14dBW). Even higher powers were available into lower impedances before clipping: 195Wpc into 4 ohms with both channels driven (19.9dBW), and 332W into 2 ohms with one channel driven (19.2dBW)."

Dick

Dick--thank you for illustrating the Pass Labs XA30.5 info. That changes things a bit. I'll look further into that option. Much appreciated!