Spectron - to your post of 03-05-09, yeah I'm familiar with how distortion works ergo my use of the phrase I used to distinguish it from the other forms.
The 'magic' in Pass Labs amplification I am referring to, since you are questioning the sorcery, is indeed there. I am familiar with the formulas via sensitivity, 3db and watts doubling and all that, etc. The 'magic' is that companies can rate their systems at 'n' distortion level, there is no universal standard. One company says their amp is 100 watts, but at what level of thd and at what frequency and for what duration? So the Pass stuff is rated quite conservatively as these things go, and thus deliver far beyond what is on the spec sheet for any of their amps. Same goes for a several other top-end companies. The second part of the magic is the continuing doubling down with ohms, I don't have it in front of me, but the Pass stuff doubles down real well (well, in their recent Class A offerings, only in the 0.5 models). The third part that can contribute to the magic is the short term max output, which is wayyyyy higher than rms. The ratio is muuucchhh higher than most amps, so for short periods it can slam with the best of them. (Note, not compared to Spectron amps! those seem to be in their own league in this respect)
So, for 90 watts at 4 ohms, I would indeed consider it magical compared to what else is out there at 90 watts/4 ohms.
What are you using, isn't it like 7000 watts or something peak? Quite a different beast. Anyway, I didn't write this earlier because this is a preamp thread and didn't want to hijack it, but now that the thread has died down a bit thougth I'd chime in with a bit of this off-topic info.
Happy listening!
