[gene9p]

I uninstalled and reinstalled the cartridge but problem persisted. I then re set up the Parasound..what a beautiful sound!..but boy did the XA25 grow on me fast...and yeah the problem was there..not as noticeable but still there. So in went the Vinnie Rossi Lio and yup same problem with both amps..damn...So now my place is looking like a recording studio with wires amps and preamps all over..lol. Okay re set up the mac with the XA25 but this time I installed my old reliable Ortofon 2m Black cartridge. This is a so smooth and as great an affordable cartridge out there and just loves VPI Classic turntables. I can honestly sat that the problem was reduced to hardly noticeable..there..but very tolerant. So that leaves only the speakers acting up. One thing I love about the Snells I restored is that you can dial up and down the tweeters. So down the dial went from the norm which is half way to one quarter...ahhhhh..now we're talking. 5 hours  later and a well deserved glass of wine, I have my feet up with some Marseilles on the TT.

[Rocket]

Hi,

I don't really know much about your system but with Vinyl all the components are really important. CD is so set and forget and depends on the quality of the music, cdp and dac if you use one. With vinyl most people setup a cartridge by themselves or get their dealer to do so. I use Mike from Liquid Audio to setup my turntable and cartridge and it sounds very good. I'm using a bryston turntable with an audio Technica cartridge into the phono section of my SST Ambrosia preamplifier. The cartridge is definitely the weak point but my vinyl sounds really good especially using good quality vinyl pressings.

On a side note a friend discovered his Ortofon Quintet Black (which I really like) was damaged by his cleaner. It only had about 10 hours on it lol. That was his xmas present.

Anyway good luck with your new amplifier.

Cheers Rod

[gene9p]

thanks..some cartridges are very fragile.I went through a couple of Vas Novas  from VPI's special made line of cartridges until I traded it back in for something else. The 2M Black works with just about any turntable and will put a smile on any vinyl lover without breaking the bank. It's an MM  cartridge so set up is very easy compared to an MC and even the Moving Irons from Soundsmith which I really like.

[gene9p]

Okay I think I' m done. Sounding really good now. Last move was to open up the big Mac, remove the bar holding tubes in place and take out the new issue gold plated 12x7 Tung Sols and in went the NOS Tung Sol 5751 from some 60 years ago that I bought as a matched pair from the seller of my Mac C220. He also sold me some Jan GE 5751's as well. The Mac C2300 uses the same tubes so I placed them in the line stage along with a pair of Herbies tube dampeners to control any ringing. Time to relax and enjoy the music and the XA25.

[RDavidson]

The XA25 is my winter amp and as winter has started to finally settle-in here in SE Wisconsin I got it hooked up today and am looking forward to reacquainting myself to its wonderful performance. As I hooked it back up for the first time in months, I realized that it has no main power switch on the back (that was mentioned earlier in the thread). Seems I was remembering some of my past Pass amps like the XA30.8 that do have a main switch on the back. At any rate, I use the power switch (the only one it has) when I'm ready to listen, then turn it off when I'm done.

[gene9p]

Getting more used to the XA25, ie I remembering to turn it off at night more than b4..lol. It seems using the balance outputs for the PS Audio Phono stage doesn't agree with the Mac and the Pass  combo. It was great using the Vinnie Rossi Lio but not in this set up. I tried several different balanced cables b4 dropping a Pair of Triode Wire labs spirit 1 RCA's from the phono to the Mac and it sure has changed for the better. The balanced cables I tried were Triode Wire Labs, Morrow Audio, and Wy Wires Platinum series. Probably some time later this week I will reinstall the SoundSmith Boheme cartridge and see where that leads. I have not noticed the Pass Labs XA25 getting hot..very warm but not hot like my old B&K amp..now that was HOT.