To fully appreciate this amp's dissipation ability—heat shrugoffity in proper pidgin English—requires a closer look at its heat sinks which mount to solid half-inch aluminium stock. They're like FirstWatt's metal except arranged vertically for what I estimate is easily thrice the huckleberry fin work. Like it is for woofers, in this game surface area is king.

Before all of it begins to reek of hemanship—not the saintly shit—AVS forum member Blazar had this to say: "... the Pass Labs XA30.5 has been in my rack for a solid two years so I know it well. Very detailed and good bass control. I am not even sure why I bothered to mess with trying out the other two amps. It really does sound very good. Overall pretty holographic sound and mates well with the Duo Omega horns. Very decent soundstage and imaging, individual instruments and vocal solos sound great. It's hard to imagine it getting much better than this for the Duos. I have never seen the needle move so I am assuming I was always listening in Class A. My rating is 9/10. Lastly the new kid on the block, the Pass Labs XA30.8. Holy crap, this is it. The imaging, soundstage, individual instrument and voice rendition, bass control are all better even at low volumes. At reference volumes, the low-level detail is ridiculously good. The Avantgardes clearly do better with 30 watts of power and this is proven by the inferior results with the FirstWatt F3 in my setup. I cannot imagine it getting any better than this. I have heard all sorts of equipment in my time but the XA30.8 is simply not marketing hype. I was really hoping that the F3 would sound best so that I didn't have to keep the 30.8... If there are amplifiers in the universe better than this, I would be hard pressed to imagine it. I have zero likelihood of trading this sucker in at this point. It is really sick awesome for my speakers but I imagine the amplifier series is phenomenal overall...What bothers me is that it is 19" wide and therefore does not fit on a standard audio rack..."

What's most relevant about this quote is the first-wattiness of the XA30.8. Blazar's speakers are 107dB efficient. For low-level consumption, he runs his Pass amp far below 1/10th of a watt. Most amps dialled for power don't even make it out of park under such conditions, never mind into first gear. Suckatacious as our neighbour's kid would put it. That the XA30.8 doesn't pursue such suck factor is a major compliment from an owner who'd really know about this aspect. It also indicates that the amp runs quiet enough for such extreme noise magnifiers.

Before we run the XA30.8 through its sonic paces, a few words on value seem vital. The amp I'd just finished crating up for its journey back to Athens had been the €5'500 Black Pearls Audio Taurus, a big class A/B Mosfet design from a mostly unknown brand. With the EU/US exchange at the time of writing, the Greek amp was within spitting distance of the Pass. Yet it was neither as well built nor sonically on the same plateau. Marja & Henk had recently done the honours on the 80wpc class A AbysSound ASX-2000 from Poland. That retails for €8'750, quite a bit higher than the $6'500 XA30.8. Yet the latter's factual power is comparable. And it's a Nelson Pass design. It's an open secret why the FirstWatt SIT2 costs $5'000 yet on actual hardware is seriously scalped by contrast. It sports two static-induction transistors from a stash that was custom-made for Nelson and which represented a serious and risky investment given that it was an unproven part when he committed. There are additionally two normal transistors to control bias, 18 power supply caps, a few resistors and a relatively small toroid. The case is shallower, the heat sinks are simpler and there's no meter. And obviously sales figures for a 10wpc transistor amp that only puts out 8 watts into 4 ohms aren't at all comparable. That has to reflect in the per-unit price.

Kind of Blue.

Without affixing silly comments to the XA30.8's actual sticker (when I started in hifi retail, I barely made twice that in a whole year), in context relative to competitors and what's actually in it on parts and sheer heavy metal, it's hard not to be impressed. That's especially so since it includes dealer and distributor margins. I think even someone for whom this amp is well out of reach would acknowledge that as a polished production not DIY component, it represents astonishing value. The XA30.8 and Gordon Gecko's greed is good mantra aren't on speaking terms. Whilst this amp clearly isn't green, it shouldn't make one feel blue neither unless lust and inability collided badly. Though I admittedly have a very effective Vibex DC filter on my hifi power delivery—it symmetrizes the AC and prevents transformer hum—the honking trafo of the XA30.8 disappeared to dead quiet, ear on cover, within seconds of coming to life. Zero mechanical hum, zero electrical surf on the tweeters. Two more points to add to our growing impressive list.