Personal amp evolution

My profound disagreement with evo845. I moved from tubes to the Pass Labs X150 and couldn't be happier. Gone is the caramel gluon that valves bring. The sound is sweet, quick, and accurate. It has brought my Apogee Duetta Signatures to their full promise. It doesn't even resemble other solid states I have tried, including Acurus, Aragon, Bryston, B&K, Bel, and Krell. Before the Pass X, I was a stalwart tube soldier. I don't argue, though, with a less revealing speaker, valves triumph.

From first to last and worst to greatest
1. Fisher
2. Denon
3. B&K 4420
4. Jolida 1000
5. Pass X150
6. Pass X600
7. eAR 2 MKII

Yeah, right, David. ;-)

I'm crying for you. :-D

This may be your answer

My evolution is short. Already stated here, I am commenting this last time, because the evolution has come to an end.

Fisher rack system
Denon
B&K
Jolida 1000
Pass X-150
Pass X-600

And now, the serious stuff:

ICE powered eAR2 MK11

and the last... ever:

ICE powered H2O Signature monos

Hi Alan,

While I respect your choice, I wonder if you ever soldered Sonicap Platinum bypass caps on your H2O amps? Have you auditioned any NOS CDP? Those two changes, and the copper ribbon speaker cables transformed my H2O sound from rather SS like, to profoundly transparent and musical.

I use to own Pass Labs amps, the X150, and X600. Most recently I heard the X600.5 and XA100 monos. Both amps have certainly been improved over the ones they replaced.

Still, I would not consider trading the H2O for any Pass amp. The difference is not small. either. I am talking about my system. I mentioned a couple winning improvements I made.

I bet the Fire really helped the Pass amp. I also tried the Pass XP10. It was pretty darn good, but I was happy to keep my Fire.