Nenuphar journey, part 4.
The next amp to listen to with the Nenuphars was the FirstWatt F-1. The F1 was the first model of the then new First Watt enterprise. The amp in my living room was serial number 017, put together by the master himself at home.
The general idea with amplifier damping factors is that the Cubes can be overdamped so that lower is better. And the most obvious 'better' with low DF is more bass. The F-1 is probably unique in that its output impedance is a whopping 80 ohms. Since the DF is calculated by dividing the speaker impedance by the amplifier output impedance, for the Nenuphar and F1 combo we have 8/80 = 0.1....Yowza!
Well, yes. It seems the F1 is a bass beast. Too much so for this boy when listening to Yellow's Toy album, but great with the growling intro to Biloxi (off The River & The Thread album by Rosanne Cash).
If anything, there was a bit of bass overhang, probably from too low a DF. There was a touch of sibilance on Joni Mitchell's A Case of You. The soundstage was average/normal for my setup.
Next up, the SIT-3