Pass Labs X260.8


I'm a slave to this hobby

I have been running my Sonus Faber Electa Amator III with a Pass Labs XA25, and it sounds great. I listen to mostly phono, Linn LP12 and Pass Labs XP15 phono pre.    

Although the XA25 is a sick amp and runs way above 50 wpc at 4 ohms, I could not help but think I needed more headroom. Anyway, I pulled the trigger on a pair of demo 260.8s. Yes, way more than what I need, but screw it, I worked my ass off this year.

   So, currently, I have my stereo rack on the right side of my bedroom, but the speakers are on a 90 degree wall, 10' away. I have very nice Morrow SP5 bi wire speaker cables that run 26' down into the basement, and then up to the speakers. I have 3' of slack to move the speakers out from the wall when serious listening. For casual listening I move them back closer to the wall, so my wife doesn't kick them over out of frustration when walking by.  My question is, do I leave the SP5 speaker cables at 26' and place the 260.8s in the rack, OR purchase 26' balanced cables, and have the 260.8s on the floor between the speakers with shorter speaker cables. Yes, my wife will hate this arrangement, but because I have been relegated to the corner of our bedroom for my ridiculous hobby , I may be willing to die on that hill. But it really comes down to the best sound. I sit 8' away from the speakers and they are 8' apart when 30" off the wall. 26' balanced cables or 26' speaker cables. The general consensus will be longer speaker cables, but I always see mono blocks right next to the speakers....

 

 

 

 

128x128marktheshark

Showing 4 responses by marktheshark

Thank you for your advice Geof and Mitch, I always thought of keeping the interconnects as short as possible because they were more critical to the sound of the overall system, rather than speaker cables. Is it because I would be using balanced cables instead of unbalanced?

I am looking at Morrow 8 meter balanced interconnects. I have used shorter cables from Morrow in the past, and they seem like good quality and a good value. Obviously, with my configuration, I am am going to be paying a lot for decent 24’ cables if I move the amps next to the speakers.

Regarding the PASS Labs X260.8 manual. I have not found it specifically online, just more generic .8 manuals. I'm sure something will come with the amps.

williewonka, thank you for the info, that is interesting about separating the + and - conductors of my speaker wires. I was using 26' bi-wire Morrow speaker cables, and now changed over the XLRs for the longer run. I have cut the pair of speaker cables into 4 lengths, each length has 8 smaller conductors in parallel. I will experiment with using different configurations, bi-amping, biwire and now biconductor.

So, if in fact, XLR cables all seem to be the same. Where would they fall into range of single ended cables? Are they over all better, average, worse than unbalanced?