Experience with the Pass Labs XP-15 phono stage?


I'm thinking of replacing my ARC PH7 with the Pass Labs XP-15, to give me more flexibility to use low gain MCs.

Anyone made the switch to this phono stage?

Thanks for your help!
lanetim
Tim, the XP15 is a wonderful phono pre. I run an XX2 with phenomenal results using the medium 66 db gain loaded at 100 ohms. I run balanced out. Very quiet and so smooth with amazing 3d soundstage. Phenomenal bass control. No grain whatsoever. I give it the highest recommendation and got a great deal from Mark at Reno HiFi which offers no risk trial other than shipping. No affiliation just a happy customer.
I also give it the highest recommendation. And I also got mine from Mark at Reno HiFi. It was a superb transaction.

The XP-15 was a tremendous upgrade from my Xono. Tone and timbre both improved quite significantly. I couldn't be more pleased.
Kennyb, I completely agree about tone and timbre. I always felt the earlier Pass stuff was to the cooler side of neutral having owned an X1 pre and moving to an XP10. I have heard the Xono and agree about the increase in sound quality with the XP15. Lanetim--hope everything works out well. The directions by Wayne Colburne that come with the XP15 for setting gain and loading are really quite helpful. I tried a few settings but pretty quickly settled on where I am now. Can you tell us more about your setup, esp the preamp--what gain does that offer now? Have you decided on the dyna xx2? Keep us posted. Swanny
PS, A friend of mine was over the other day and had never heard my setup before (and probably nothing approaching high end before either). We ended up listening to a bunch of vinyl for a couple hours while our wonderful wives tended to a play date with our daughters. He was really blown away and so was I with record after record. It's a very revealing stage but also one that performs so well and so naturally that no matter the type of music it all is well presented in a very musical and non fatiguing fashion. It just gets out of the way and lets you hear deeply into the recording. That is, if everything is set up properly up the chain--tonearm, cart, clean records, etc.