Pass XP-15 Owner's Manual

PASS

®

Aug. 14, 2016

XP-15 Owner’s Manual

XP-15 Owner’s Manual

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WARNING

Please keep these instructions and heed all warnings.
Use product only for intended function.

For your protection please read the following:

Water and moisture: Electrical devices should not be used near

water (as per example, near a bathtub, washbasin, kitchen sink,
laundry tub, wet basement or swimming pool. ) Care should be
taken such that objects do not have the opportunity to fall, and that
liquid is never spilled onto or into the device enclosure through
openings.

Power Sources: An electrical device must be connected to a mains
power source in strict accordance with the supplied product owners

manual. Please verify that the AC mains voltage specied in the

product manual match those requirements indicated on the unit and
the AC voltage provided to your location by the power company.
Unplug this apparatus during lightening storms or when unused for
long periods of time. To completely disconnect this apparatus from
mains power, disconnect the power cord from the AC receptacle.
The equipment power switch does not provide adequate protection
to be considered a service disconnect.

Grounding: Adequate precautions should be taken so that the
grounding provisions built into an electrical product are never
defeated.

Power Cords: Pass Labs provides a power supply cord that meets
all legislated requirements for the market in which the product was
originally sold. If you choose to substitute an after-market product
we urge you to choose a polarized cord that is fully safety rated by
the necessary local authority. Under no circumstances defeat the
safety purpose of any polarized plugs. If the supplied power cord

does not t your power outlet; consult a qualied electrician, never

modify the plug.

Power Cord Protection: Power supply cords should be routed so
that they are not likely to be walked on, abraded, or pinched by items
placed on or against them, paying particular attention to cords where
they enter plugs or exit from a device. Never under any circumstance
insert a cut or damaged power cord into a mains power socket.

Power and Signal: Cables should never be connected /
disconnected with equipment powered up. Failure to heed this
warning may cause injury, damage or destroy equipment.

XP-15 Owner’s Manual

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Ventilation: Power-ampliers run hot, but you should be able to

place your hands on them without discomfort. You must allow for
this heat in installation, by providing for free air circulation around
the product. Electronics should not be subjected to sources of
excessive radiant heat. Excessive heat can shorten the life of the
product and may cause the electronics to self protect and shut down.
Never block any ventilation openings. Allow at least 6 inches of
clearance around these products for proper ventilation.

Crush and Tip Hazard: When moving or placing these products
use caution to avoid injury from tip-over or fall. Make sure that any
stand, cart, table, bracket or tripod used to support this product is

weight rated sufcient to the task.

Servicing: To reduce the risk of re, electrical shock or other

injuries, the user should not attempt to service the device beyond
that which is described in the operating instructions. All other

servicing must be referred to qualied service personnel.

For Units With Externally Accessible Fuse Receptacle: Unplug
the device from all sources of power before changing or inspecting
any fuse. Replace fuse with one of same physical size, type and

rating as that specied by the manufacture for that product.

XP-15 Owner’s Manual

Pass Laboratories

13395 New Airport Rd.

Suite G.

Auburn, CA 95602

www.passlabs.com

[e-mail]

tel: [phone]

“Pass”, “PASS”, “Pass Labs”, “Pass Laboratories”, Supersymmetery”,
“Aleph”, and “Zen” and are all registered trademarks of Pass
Laboratories, Inc., and all rights thereto are protected by law.

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Introduction

Pass Laboratories has long been respected for building some of the

nest phono-stages in the audio industry. Since 1999 the venerable

Pass Laboratories X-ono has been respected by both consumer and
professional user as one of the premiere reference phonostage pre­amplifers.

As associated equipment in the audio chain has improved we at
Pass Labs found ourselves longing for an improved phono-stage
with even lower noise, greater resolution and sonic ease than we
had enjoyed with the Pass Labs X-ono. The culmination of that
investigation resulted in the XP-15, Wayne Colburn’s latest phono­stage and successor to the X-ono.

Thank you for purchasing the XP-15, we trust that you will nd it

easy to set up and a joy to use.

The XP-15 has a very accurate RIAA equalization curve. This curve
is accurate to better than 1/10 dB over 10 octaves. The accuracy
of this curve does not vary with an adjustment change of gain or
cartridge loading.

The XP-15 features gain adjustable from between 46dB and 76dB; a
range sufcient to allow successful operation of not only high output

moving magnet cartridges, but also the lowest output moving coil
cartridges without the use of an auxiliary step-up transformer.

By the early 1980’s audiophiles recognized that in general lower

output moving coil cartridges were capable of retrieving more ne

detail from record grooves than higher output cartridges, in many
instances this was simply a case of having lower moving mass to
excite in the electrical generator of the cartridge. Moving coils with

less than a half dozen turns of the nest wire possible attached

to the lightest and stiffest cantilevers were capable of accurately
tracking musical passages that a few years before would have seemed
impossible.

The cartridge makers had clearly taken a page from the automotive
and motorcycle racing engineers who were doing everything in their
power to lower “un-sprung mass” in an effort to get tires to stay in
intimate contact with rough terrain at high speeds. In both regards
the ability to accurately track the impossible is the ultimate goal….
less moving mass attached to the suspension is a big part of the
answer.

XP-15 Owner’s Manual

Unfortunately the active electronics that could extract signal at those
low levels typically added noise. Step-up transformers generally

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addressed the noise issues, but frequently lost the very ne detail

somewhere in the transformers iron core.

The XP-15 gives vinyl playback the gain structure we need and

low noise gures we want. The ability to play extremely low output

cartridges without a head transformer allows for a clarity with these
cartridges that we’ve personally never experienced.

This extremely low noise / high gain structure of the XP-15 is
capable of cleanly and quietly delivering in excess of 0.5V line level
signal output with a phono cartridge input of 80 micro-volts. As far

as we know these are the best performance gures in the industry for

a phono-stage. Performance metrics aside this is beyond question
the most user friendly and sonically enjoyable phono-stage that Pass
Laboratories has ever offered.

Cartridge loading can be adjusted from a couple ohms to 47k-Ohms,
with a parallel capacitance from 100 pF to 750 pF.

Setup

The XP-15 is a single chassis design with internal power supply
which attaches to house power through a standard fused and

grounded IEC inlet. A tag afxed to the chassis will indicate voltage

and current requirements for the XP-15. Before operation, please
verify that the indicated line voltage is consistent with the line voltage
where you intend to install this piece of equipment. Line voltage
is determined at the time of construction and not user changeable.
Line voltage will be 100 Vac, 120 Vac, 220 Vac or 240 Vac.

In addition the rear panel also has a standard IEC 320 inlet socket,
which accepts standard detachable power cords for connection to
house power and a panel-mount fuse holder for safety. Unit’s built at

100 / 120 Vac will be fused for ½ amp; units intended for 220 / 240

Vac will be fused at ¼ amp. In all instances the fuse will be a 3AG
single use (type 313) slow blow fuse (1/4” x 1-1/4”). Substitution
of another time constant other than slow blow will not harm the

amplier but we would not expect longevity from the fuse element.

It is strongly suggested that you not substitute any other type fuse or
fuse rating.

We include a power cord with this product that meets all recognized
compliance standards for safety. Should you wish to add an
aftermarket power cord you are welcome to do so. The product
accepts any cordest with an IEC 60320 C13 connector or equivalent.
We strongly suggest that you only use cordsets that meet the legal

directives of your specic country.

XP-15 Owner’s Manual

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The single chassis XP-15 comes with two sets of input connections,
two sets of output connections, and a single 5-way binding post for
turntable grounding. These are located on the rear panel of the pre-

amplier.

Adjustment

On the rear panel you will see two sets of 8 pole DIP switches for
each channel, these switches allow you select cartridge type (moving
magnet or moving coil), select gain, and adjust cartridge loading.
Next to the IEC inlet you will see graphic representation of how the
two pairs of switches interact. From the factory the XP-15 ships
with a default setting of moving coil at 100 ohms with a gain of 76
dB.

In order to set the XP-15 for your particular cartridge you will need
to have some salient information on the cartridge. If you do not
have that cartridge information please contact your dealer or the Pass
Laboratories factory. We will attempt to help you with that data, but
by no means do we have factory data on every cartridge ever built.

Please be aware that the XP-15 is a dual mono design, whatever
setting you select for one channel the other channel will need to be
set identically.

XP-15 Owner’s Manual

You will rst need to select Moving Magnet (MM) or Moving Coil
(MC) as appropriate for your specic cartridge. In all instances the

switch-tab for any selection will need to up for “on” and down for
“off ”. If you have a moving iron cartridge, you will most likely
need to select Moving Magnet if the output is greater that 2mV. A
moving iron cartridge with an output of less than 1mV will typically

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