Pass X1??

Over the last fifteen years or so, high-end two-channel amps and preamps have generally not experienced ground-breaking improvements in circuit design and listening and build quality. On the contrary, the market for high-end two-channel gear since the mid to late 90's has diminished considerably, one of the many results of which is that new designs do not benefit from the economies of scale that manufacturers enjoyed back then. What was a very high-end piece of two-channel gear ten years ago will often be better than today's high-end models, and cost a fraction on the used market of what you would pay for new gear. The short answer is that the X-1 is a very good solid-state preamp (of which there are unfortunately few), and there are only a handful of solid-state preamps out there at any price, be they current production or used, that compete with or beat it.

If you do buy an expensive new preamp, be sure to give it hundreds of hours of listening time before drawing conclusions - the effects of a good preamp on a system are subtle and take a lot of time to fully perceive.

Digital gear, in contrast, has tended to improve considerably because a CD player is part-computer (and computer technology improves over time), and I think it's safe to say that cheap and good-to-very-good digital gear now provides more bang for the buck. At the high end of the market, however, the power supplies and analog output stages of some 1990's models were outstanding and easily beat current production models. In addition, some current high-end manufacturers at the very top of the market achieve their sound through the deliberate use of vintage 1980's chips. In short, with very high-end digital, it's more complicated.

Peterayer: I did not "imply" that high-end two channel gear has not improved much since the mid 1990's - I clearly stated it, and as a general proposition, I stand by the statement. But your point about the Pass gear is well taken, and on a very resolving high-end system, I have no doubt that you can hear and enjoy the improvements. Again to your point, is my darTZeel better than my Rowland Model 6's from the mid 90's? Sure. But as you point out, current gear is very, very expensive.

To my point, I will put my Rowland Coherence II with battery power supply up against any current production solid-state preamp short of the darTZeel. These days, the odds of finding Vishay-level quality parts in gear is slim - in the mid/late 90's, this level of parts quality was almost standard in statement designs. Aside from Atma-Sphere, you will be hard-pressed to find a current maker of high-end gear that hand-wires its gear - everyone went to boards because there isn't enough business volume to employ techs to do it. Alas, there are few companies like Pass Labs that have the resources and market presence to bring meaningful improvements to this type of gear (many high-end two-channel brands are in fact one-to-five person operations, often operated out of homes).

Happy New Year to the Audiogon community.