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Pass INT-30A with Acoustic Zen Adagio

I'm currently using a Pass INT-30A with a pair of Acoustic Zen Adagio speakers.  Based on all review I've read, the reviews of both the speakers and the amp led me to believe that this would be a very smooth, musical combination.  However, I'm finding it to be rather analytical.  Good recordings sound fantastic, but any recordings that are just a hair short of spectacular come across as sounding very bad.  This is not what I was looking to get into, having only a portion of my music that I can listen to due to this problem.  

I have been racking my brain for days now trying to decide if I should switch out the amp or the speakers.  The amp does so many things so well, but so do the speakers.  I was considering a pair of LSA2 towers, since I used to own the LSA1 bookshelves and found them to be the smoothest, most musical speakers I've ever owned.  On the other hand, I could swap out the amp and go back to tubes and get that smoothness back that way.

Has anyone had experience with this amp, the speakers, or even both in combination?
jwglista

Showing 1 response by nekoaudio

nekoaudio's avatar
nekoaudio
489 posts
 
May I suggest Musical Fidelity as another option? Lower price point that McIntosh and similar sound. I think you may find them less analytical than the Pass. I might also suggest Simaudio or Ayre but those are in the same price range as McIntosh.

Can you find a local dealer that would let you try out at home for a while?

I'm currently using a Musical Fidelity integrated amp with a pair of Adagios and think it works very well. I also lean more towards the warm, analog side of things.
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