No much time left, very sad to see you leave but feel personally that it is more healthy to just enjoy wonderful music through Robs master pieces than spend time comparing stuff.
I am sure that I am not the only one thinking about if we should wait for the pulse array power amps or go for a M-scalar. So do you have some feeling for the the loss from inserting the XA60.8s compared to the gain from adding the Blu MK2? I.e. would you chose Dave+Omega Alnicos or pick BluDave+xa60.8+Omega Alnicos?
Thanks for the kind sentiment. I enjoy hearing new things and when the opportunity to hear something new and novel presents itself, it will be hard to say no but typical of many BluDAVE owners, I have been enjoying my setup for some time now and feel it's time to just be grateful for have what I have. Of course, it will be difficult to not want to hear the new things that Rob comes up with and so my door will always be open to his offerings.
At this time, I feel fortunate to have two listening rooms with contrasting presentations. One is a point source setup with seductive textural qualities that is especially lustrous with intimate vocals and small ensemble while the other is a line source setup with a giant sound stage and wonderful dynamics that I have really grown to love for large orchestral and heavily amplified music. While resolution and transparency are the 2 qualities I have sought above any other, there is also the matter of tone. While I have moved away from tubes, DAVE directly driving my Omegas/Voxativs provides me the detail delicacy that I have always loved with small directly heated triodes. This delicacy is difficult to capture with powerful amps driving my Martin Logans, however, the Pass Labs amps provides enough of that midrange bloom and treble sweetness while also delivering the control and dynamics that solid state is known for.
Having been through much of Pass Labs' line, I found the XA30.8 and XA60.8s to have perhaps the most evocative tonal qualities of the line but they are a bit soft and lacking in dynamics for my Martin Logans. The XA100.8 and X350.8 have faster transients, are more incisive, have tremendous bass and better grunt and are considerably more transparent while still exhibiting Pass Lab's trademark tonal qualities. For my Martin Logans, thus far, I have found the X350.8 to be the best fit of all. Here is something that will surprise some. Pass Labs strongly suggests that their amps sound best when paired with one of their preamps. Typical marketing talk and as many of you know, I gave up on preamps long ago believing that DAVE directly driving any amp sounds more transparent than any preamp ever could and my direct A/B against a variety of preamps including a $30k VAC seemed to prove this to me. Even a very good Music First Audio Baby Reference V2 passive preamp paired with the Pass Labs did not sound as good to me as DAVE directly driving the Pass Labs. However, I agreed to listen to Pass Labs' new X-12 and then their X-22 and to my surprise, it has become difficult (if not impossible) to remove the X-22 from the chain. Their amps simply sound better with their preamps and not by a small margin and it's as if they designed their amps to sound incomplete without them.
Those who compare amps will claim that Pass Labs are colored and not as transparent as as some (i.e. Constellation, Boulder, Soulution, Burmester) but these other amps that I have recently auditioned don't have the soul that the Pass Labs has and even the Burmester 911 Mk3, which is the most transparent amp I have heard sounds severely veiled when compared to Rob's DAVE directly driving speakers. The true test will come when Rob's DX amps become available. No doubt that Blu2/DAVE/DX will speak to the left side of my brain better than the Pass Labs but will it speak to the right side of my brain in the same way and that is the question that haunts me at this time.