Pass Labs XA60.5 instruction

XA60.5 Owner’s Manual

The amplifier’s voltage and current rating are indicated on the rear panel. It will be either 230 volts, 115 volts or 100 volts. The larger amplifiers have a circuit breaker of the appropriate capacity. The smaller power amplifiers use a slow-blow 3AG type fuse. The frequency rating of the AC line source is 50 to 60 Hz. Please verify that the amplifiers indicated voltage requirements are consistent with the supplied voltage and current at your location.

On the rear panel you will find both RCA and XLR type input connections for single-ended or balanced inputs. If you use the RCA input, be certain that the XLR connector has a gold shorting plug between pins 1 and 3, which connects the “minus” input to ground, otherwise the amplifier will not operate properly. If you lose this plug, just contact the factory – we give them away all the time.

The question comes up all the time – are balanced inputs (XLR) better than single-ended (RCA)? The answer is that balanced lines generally give lower noise and slightly less distortion. They are recommended unless your favorite source component has only RCA outputs.

Also on the rear panel are the output connections for the loudspeakers. On stereo amplifiers there is one pair per channel, and on mono amplifiers we provide two pairs wired in parallel to facilitate “bi-wiring” a loudspeaker. As you are probably familiar, the red one is positive polarity, and the black one is negative.

Please note that, being a balanced output, both of these terminals are electrically live – neither is grounded and should not be treated as ground. This is particularly important if you are using the output of the amp to also drive a subwoofer amplifier or other active component. If there is any question, please contact the manufacturers of the products involved – both they and we will be happy to advise you.

If you happen to need a clean signal ground connection for any reason, we provide a dedicated 5 way binding post just for that on the rear of the amplifier.

On the rear panel you will also find a pair of 5 way binding posts for external turn-on control. Applying 5 to 12 volts DC at this connection will override the front panel stand-by switch and turn the amplifier on.