Pass Labs XA200 owner manual Introduction

Introduction

XA200 Owner’s Manual

Analog designer Nelson Pass has over the years produced some truly great solid-state amplifiers, each unique in it’s own way. Not surpris- ingly, the Pass Laboratories ™ XA200 monoblock amplifier is no ex- ception. The XA200’s sleek industrial design is a stunning understate- ment of artistic form integrated with state of the art function.

Since the introduction in 1997, the X amplifier series using the pat- ented Supersymmetry™ circuit topology have been the mainstay of amplifier offerings from Pass Laboratories™. These amplifiers are heavily biased Class A/B designs with only two gain stages and an ab- solutely minimal component count in the signal path. In spite of this simplicity and thanks to the unique characteristic of the X topology, these amplifiers achieve very high power with outstanding subjective and objective performance.

With the introduction of the XA200 Pass Laboratories™ significantly raises the performance standard of excellence by introducing an en- tirely new series of power amplifiers. The new “XA” series of ampli- fiers feature a refined and elegantly simple, very highly biased, pure Class A mode of operation. This is a new and unique circuit topology that we descriptively characterize as being Single-ended Class A. This new topology combines the very best characteristics of Pass Labora- tories™ “X” series amplifiers and the highly rated “Pass Laboratories Aleph™”. The XA series is the marriage of a highly refined Aleph™ output stage with the patented Supersymmetry™ “X” front end.

The emphasis of the XA series is to accentuate performance over power. The XA series has the characteristic warm midrange and sweet top end of the Aleph™ product conjoined with the extreme dynamic range and definitive bass control of the X series amplifiers.

The XA 200 is packaged in an artistically refined variant of the mas- sive chassis previously reserved for the 1000 watt X-1000.5 monob- lock amplifier, but running more than twice the Class A bias current of our other amplifiers.

The Pass Labratories™ XA200 will deliver 200 watts rms into 8 ohms of impedance. This is the amplifiers class A limit, driving the XA200 harder or reducing the impedance of the load will not convey any additional power. Driving into a short will not convey any additional power. These are not design oversights or flaws in the XA200, but rather a condition of the very highly biased Class A operation. How- ever; as an interesting point of reference, 200 watts driving a 87dB/ 1W/1m speaker will deliver a 112 dB (very loud) average acoustic sig- nal in a 100 cubic meter room, peaks will be somewhat higher.

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