Somebody ever heard the combination Aleph 3 with pa 1 of Ensemble? You can mail me orang_asing_@hotmail.com

I will admit to being a tube buff. Transistors definitely have their place(driving woofers), but the sound of a tube driving the highs and midranges was somthing special. I recently had the opportunity to do some serious listening to this little amp, and I have finally found a transistor amp which I could love past 150hz. The sound is clear, detailed, mellow and sweet. It's not a tube sound, but just as enjoyable. Interestingly, it has most of the drawbacks of many tube amps. Its power is limited, its bass is not particularly tight, and it will double as a space heater in the winter. Still, in a bi-amped system, it is awesome
Strengths: Terrific high and midrange sound, great imaging; good price
for an audiophile product. Ideal for biamped system

Weaknesses: Not a lot of bass kick; runs hot and inefficient

Transparency, holographic, pinnipointing soundstage, and very airy sound. Good mid band.

Very very sensitive to speakers matching, and may be to the other electronics and cables. Soft sounding bass. With certain cables the highs can sound to soft.

First of all, about some of the "one hearing reviews" that you can read below. I have to say that no one of the very best reviewers (as Wes Phillips or any other who is recognised by his work) submmit opinions by "one hearing". They publish their reviews after months of hearing the electronic under study. "One hearing review" is not only inacceptable, is irresponsible.

I think this amp have very good sound characteristics that make fall in love with some listeners, and some other that can bother some other. I have to agree with some of the "one to three stars" reviewers below. When I compare this Pass Amp to my Bryston And my Counterpoint amps, the sound is more transparent, the imagin pinnipoint better and soundstage is best. However, the bass is not as good as the bass of the other amps. If you look for a kicker amp, this is not for you. In the other hand, the Bryston and the Counterpont are really kickers, and do very good work with minimonitors as Totem M-1 and B&W CDM 1-SE.
The highs are soft with some mellow sonunding speakers cables, as my Audioquest Forest, and more prominent, but a little irritating, with my Kimber Monocle XL. With the Kimbers, the speed of the amp improves significantly.
I disagree with the "one star" listeners about this is a bad amp, but I agree with some of them regarding the very carefull electronic parters matching.
If you are a Jazz/classical music lover, and are looking for an amp that can do magic with the soundstage, the air betwee instruments, and have a lots of transparency and holographic sound, this is the amp for you.
In the other hand, if you are looking for an amp that kick like the tunder, play very loud, and sounds good with music as rock, reggae, etc, this is not an amp for you. Better to buy a Bryston (Very satisfying amp).

Similar Products Used:

Bryston 3B-ST
Counterpoint NPS-100

outstanding imaging, non-fatiguing highs, solid natural bass.

none

like many audiophiles, i was fed up with solid-state power amps. highs that sounded like bursts of white noise, shallow soundstaging and the inability to listen for long periods of time without becoming fatigued. that all changed when i took a listen to single-ended tube amps. i'll spare you all the details but in the long run, i needed tighter bass response and more visceral power. then came along the aleph 3. this little amp packs all the virtues of single-ended 300b tube amps with the ability to drive real world speakers. there are certain system aspects that need to be addressed to extract the maximum performance that this amp is capable of producing. first, you must feed this amp with balanced ac either from a balanced transformer or one of the ps audio power plant units. I know that in the owners manual it says the amp does not benefit from the use of aftermarket power cords but using a wireworld aurora cable plugged into a cinepro power pro 10 ac line balancer,
bass transients take on a suddenness that is to say the least..stunning. midrange takes on a spooky "you are there" realism and a coherency in the soundstage that makes almost all other amps on the planet sound broken! even plugged straight into the wall, this amp is killer but if your budget allows, balanced ac turns the aleph 3 into a giant slayer! like other people have mentioned, use a speaker that is 89db efficient or better and you will never run out of power, even on the most demanding material. all in all, i will have to say that nelson pass is the man to watch. if his new line of amps sound better than this, the future of 2 channel audio is very bright indeed!!

system components include:
cinepro power pro 10 ac line balancer
marantz cd 63 mk2(heavily modified)feeds directly into amp
audiomagic excaliber 2 interconnects
wireworld aurora power cable
alon lotus se mk 2 speakers
asc room tuning treatment

Similar Products Used:

golden tube 300b se mk 2 with western electric 300b tubes.

Transparency,Soundstaging, Smooth Highs

Will not get the best out of inefficient speakers (although will never back down from the challenge[stable into a dead short])

This amp is nothing short of incredible. It really does give you all the strengths that allow you to listen to every type of music (save perhaps for heavy metal?) without any shortcomings.
I am using a pair of B&W Matrix 804's. This is the same combo that Stereophile used to review the amp which leads me to my next point. Acheiving great sound has a lot to do with synergy. I just bought a pair of Nautilus 804's and did the obvious thing by connecting the Pass Aleph 3 to these babies. Heaven, right? Wrong! What I heard with this combo was recessed treble, forward honking midrange bloat, and lack of bass definition (the speakers were already well broken in so I know that wasn't the factor).
I went back to the tried, tested and true match made in heaven Matrix 804's with the Aleph 3. The sound was just gorgeous. Deep, wide soundstage. Midrange that just oozes with detail. Well defined (but not Bryston type controlled) bass.
The great news is that Pass Labs has recently discontinued this power amplifier. This means that all those "audiophiles" who require only the current Class A gear will be ridding themselves of these old, outdated, and technologically irrelevant amplifiers. Do yourselves a favour and listen to this amp. If you have fairly efficient speakers I can not think of a better power amp. All those extra watts from the other manufacturers serve only one purpose; tighter bass control. So if the bulk of your listening is AC/DC, Van Halen, and Kiss (I love this music by the way, I just don't listen to it critically) you may require more power. This amp is a real gem. Buy two so if one fails after 20 years you'll have a backup. Could this be the Marantz 8 of the 1990's?

Similar Products Used:

Meitner STR55, Bryston 3B-NRB, Adcom GFA7000, Aragon 4004

I've had the Aleph 3 in my system for a month or so and felt compelled to post a review. A new preamp is on order; in the meantime, I've been feeding the Aleph directly from the variable analog outputs of a Denon DCM-460 cd changer (admittedly the weakest link in the chain). The remainder of the chain onsists of Tara RSC Master Ref Gen 2 interconnect; Aleph 3; Linn K400 biwire cable; Linn Tukans.
The Aleph 3 is unlike any other amp I've heard, delivering astonishing purity of tone and spatial accuracy, especially in the recreation of reverberent spaces. On Patricia Barber's "Cafe Blue," for example, the long, echoing decay of the finger-snaps on the "Ode to Billy Joe" track can be clearly distinguished. On "Jacaras," an album of baroque Spanish guitar music, the size of the recording venue, a medieval church, is readily apparent, creating the sense of being able to "peer" far into the acoustic space. (God, how this sounds like audiophile techno-babble, but I can't think of a better way to describe it!)

The Tukans, which do particularly well with voices and string instruments to begin with, seem like a perfect match for the Aleph 3. Though only 87db efficient, they present a 4-ohm load, into which the Aleph 3 can output 45-50 watts (which Pass Labs confirmed by phone, though their official specs indicate 60 watts into a 4-ohm load). More efficient 4-ohm speakers (such as Linn AV5140s) would probably be even more impressive.

The Aleph also sounds better the longer it's warmed up - excellent after an hour; outrageous after 4 or 5. (Yeah, single-ended class A: doubles as a space heater in the winter!)

10 stars if I could!

Mids, clarity, smoothness

The bass; it's always the bass.

I had flirted with the Aleph 3 for a year before buying her. I have taken the time to organize my system around this amp, and it has paid off gloriously. It is hard to find speakers that match this amp; if anyone tells you different, they must be lying. I even tried speakers that Pass recommended, and they were awful. But then I listened to a pair of Proac 1SCs and the search was over. The bass was tight and tuneful, but not exactly perfect. Since my room is pretty small I didn't exactly want a lot of bass or a pair of coffin size speakers to produce it. I put the Proacs on a good pair of Target (RIP) stands. I run the Aleph 3 with the Aleph P--a lovely match. I recently purchased a Vecteur L-4, and when I recieve it the quest will be complete. I use Analysis Plus Oval 12 bi-wire, and Nordost SPM Reference interconnects. The only way to combat the bass problems, I have found is the "Svelt Shelf" from Symposium, the makers of the Rollerblocks (which are also worth the money). Before the shelf, I was happy with the Pass, but now that I have heard it with the shel I am in another world altogether. As for earlier reviewers who prefer Krell, I had a KAV-300i once, and it almost ripped my head off. I just cringed whenever I listened to it. It had bass to spare, but the rest of it was crap--right back on audiogon with that one! I'll make no claims that this is the best amp in the world, but you can get these used now for about $1100 or so. I'm hard pressed to think of an amp that retails for twice that much that is as beautiful as my Pass.

Similar Products Used:

Air Tight ATM 2; Krell KAV 300i; Creek 4330; huge Classe monoblocks; various Levinson amps; Art Audio Diavolo; various C-J amps

Transport: Disc Magic by CambridgeDAC: Dac Magic 2 MK ll by Cambridge
Interlink: M 1000D by Monster
Preamp: Line Stage 2 by Audio Research
Interconnect: 2016 by WBT
Speakers: Daline 6.1 by Focal
Cable: Gold by Fulton

Tubes! Tubes! Tubes! you say? Yeah, so what. I use to own a Classic Thirty by Audio Research. And compared to most solid state amplifiers, one audition to a high quality tubed amp is enough experience for most music lovers to ditch all the power in the world for an experience that takes them closer to the music than they ever thought possible. That's what I did. Classe, Krell, Levinson... been there, done that, got the T shirt. The Audio Research Classic Thirty PRESENTED the music unlike any solid state wonder I ever heard. It wasn't the most REVEALING...(I'd have given that honor to Classe at that time)...but the ARC was by far the most believable.

The Pass Aleph 3, no tubes, but all the heat of tubes and then some. Open it up and there isn't much to see. Makes me wonder what all the circuitry in all the other amps is for. Too color? To Compress? Well, it must be.

Flip the switch and play. The Aleph 3 stands apart from every amplifier I have ever heard. How so? Detail everywhere. Big sound stage. No grit. Images appear more three dimensional and the localization of every instrument is precisely placed in the stage in it's own space. Timbres so natural you'd swear, they're here! Realistic bass, not bloated or overly authoritative--which astonshingly seems popular even among many so called audiophiles.

The Aleph 3 inconjunction with a good source and reasonably efficient speakers is an awesome thing to hear. Tubes by comparrison lack detail and resolution. The solid state amps I've heard color and cloud the music inspite of there relative strength to tubes. The Aleph 3 only amplifies. What comes in goes out. No bonus distortions. No filtration. Just music. So satisfying. I love this amp!

best amp for the price under $3000 i have ever heard

I listend to Pass Aleph 3 in a system with Von Scheikert VR-4,Pass Aleph L/Melos SHA-1, Rotel CD player. The sound was
about on par with a rack system from Circuit City. The high
was rolled off. Bass was fat and uncontrolled. Voice sounds
like it's coming out of a tunnel down the middle of the sound
stage.

Since I have never heard the VR-4 speakers before this system,
I went to a different dealer to hear VR-4 with all Krell
electronics. It sounded quite a bit different. Bass,
and sound stage are both very good. Top-end is still slightly
rolled off but not to the same extended as with the Pass amp.

So, a word of caution for possible buyers. Definitely audition
this amp with your speakers. In your own home if possible,
there might be system matching problem. I suspect
most 2-stage gain Pass amp might have problem with speakers
with low impedance and high phase angle.