Munich HIGHEND Show, May 18, 2017 — At Pass Labs, we don't change our products unless we feel that the changes are significant improvements over previous versions. Because of this we see typical product life spans of seven to eight years.
We are constantly working on and listening to new things and increasing our knowledge of circuits and components on sound. Eventually we find some things worth putting into production because they are significant enough. That time has come with a new series of preamplifiers.
The XP-12: Single Chassis Line Level Preamplifier
The new XP-12 starts with a new power supply. It uses an efficient toroidal design with both an electrostatic and Mu metal shield, along with vacuum impregnating and epoxy fill. This gives us a very quiet transformer both electrically and mechanically.
The power supply circuitry itself is also lower noise and has additional filtering; perhaps a little more complicated, but worth it.
The XP-12 uses the single stage volume control borrowed from the Xs line preamp. This gives us one hundred 1dB steps with lower noise and distortion, while removing some signal path parts.
The gain circuitry continues to use our favorite transistors from Toshiba, but has a larger, higher biased output stage like the Xs preamplifier's auto bias. This makes longer and multiple cable runs easier to drive and provides the advantage of simplifying our single-ended output circuitry while increasing performance.
Overall this makes for a quieter, more neutral, musical and versatile control center for your system.
XP-12 Specs:
- Power consumption 50 Watts
- Gain 9.3dB Balanced
- Frequency response: +/- 0.05 dB 10Hz to 20KHz -1dB @ 100KHz
- Crosstalk > 100dB
- Residual Noise 15uV 10 – 30Khz
- THD < 0.001 @ 1V 1Khz
- Double shielded low noise toroid
- Dimensions: 17" W x 12.5" D x 4" H
- MSRP: $5800
The XP-17: Single Chassis Phono Preamp
The XP-17 uses the new-shielded low noise toroidal and input filter module, like the XP-12. The power supply has an extra stage of RC filtering, allowing for lower radiated and mechanical noise.
The XP-17 has an all new input circuit that is symmetrical and lower in noise and distortion, with greater drive capability. Noise being the most prominent part of THD+N in the first section of a phono stage; by lowering noise we get better resolution and dynamics.
It was designed with a split EQ network, like the XP-25 and XI Phono, that is more accurate and can handle greater signal levels. The secondary stage runs a higher bias output stage with auto bias.
The numerous loading options from the XP-15 are all still available, plus three gain settings to accommodate low output MC to MM cartridges.
XP-17 Specs:
- Power consumption: 40 Watts
- Gain: 76, 66, 56 dB balanced 70, 60, 50 unbalanced
- Output impedance: 110 Ohms RCA; 220 Ohms balanced
- Input impedance: 10 - 47K Ohms more than 200 values
- Capacitive loading: 10 -750 pF
- RIAA curve accuracy: +/- .1 dB 20 - 20 KHz Passive / Active EQ
- Distortion and noise: .004%
- Quad-matched low noise symmetrical JFET input.
- Double shielded low noise toroidal transformer
- Dimensions: 17" W x 12.5" D x 4" H
- MSRP: $4300
