Pass labs for Sasha's

My family and I have enjoyed Wilson speakers and Pass amplifiers since we purchased a pair of 5.1 Watt Puppies and an Aleph 0's amplifier.

We integrated a home theater system with our 2 channel stereo system - so our entire family would enjoy our investment. We also have Wilson speakers (Watch II center and sides, and the W/P 5.1's) and Pass amplifiers (3 - X-250.5's) in our theater system.

Currently have a pair of Sasha I speakers. When we first got them, we drove them with a Pass XA-30.5. My wife and I preferred it to the X-250.5 by a significant margin.

Our set up is optimized for stereo with theater added to our system. The 30.5 was much more life like - it's weakness was with bass dynamics due to it's lack of power (when compared to the 250.5 or in absolute terms). We've since upgraded to a pair of 200.5's and we're very happy with them.

While I haven't heard the 100's, it's affirmed that they have challenges with delivering higher current, which is what Nelson addressed with the .5 series. Since the Sasha's dip to a ~ 2 ohm load, the 100's may not perform their best with them.

When we purchased our Sashas, we had similar questions about Pass amplifiers and read here on the Audiogon forum about the Lamm 1.2 Reference being preferred by a good Audiogon member. My wife and I visited Chris Foreman at Innovative Audio / Video (in NYC) to listen to it and we also got to listen to Spectral amplifiers.

We found the Lamm to have a slight emphasis in the bass which Chris confirmed, and we found the Spectral amps slightly (dry) lacked the portrayal of the natural acoustic of the performance we became so accustom to.

Any of the XA-.5 series amplifiers will work well. After speaking with Kent English and listening for ourselves - the higher models offer improved performance, more than just the increase in power output would imply.

The lower powered 30.5 and 60.5 models will not maintain their performance with dynamic bass (percussion). Anything at the 100.5 and above will present a much more natural performance.

Regarding the newest .8 series, I haven't had the pleasure to listen to them yet but only "hear" good things about them - and there's a few in depth comparisons some good Audiogon members were kind enough to share.

Hope this helps you enjoy your music, TJF.

Thank you, that was exactly the feedback I was looking for.

Hi Stan.
From 70hz to 250hz the Sasha's have a very heavy current demand on an amp, they are 2ohm and have a -45 degree phase angle at 70hz.

So an amp has to maintain god current delivery to get the "very best out of them", this means amps that can "almost" keep doubling their wattage for each halving of impedance load 8ohms down 4ohms down to 2ohms. They are efficient at 91db so the amp can be a 50watter into 8ohms, so long as it keeps doubling down to 2ohms.
Like the old ML2 monoblocks they were only 25watts but I bet they would of sounded magnificent on these Sasha's

EG:
8ohms---- 150watts
4ohms---- 300watts
2ohms---- 600watts

These types of amps will extract the very best from the Sasha's. This type of amps will be BJT (bi-polar) output stages, as no Mosfets will do the doubling act like a BJT amps can, and definitely no tube amp can.

Cheers George

I'm trying to determine if the xa 100.5 will do the job or do I need to step up to the 160.5. The speaker have their duties split between music and movies.