Nelson Pass First Watt amp F1

I heard one at the T.H.E. Show a couple of weeks ago, in a room with Lowther Academy speakers, run with an analog(VPI) front end.

Frankly, I wasn't impressed, and apparently neither was the exhibitor, because the next time I went back into the room, it was gone, and replaced with an Exemplar Audio 300B amp. This 300B amp sounded quite a bit better than the Pass First Watt amp did.

I know that the show environment is not the best way to listen to the true performance of many things, but in this case it was easy to spot the difference of the amp when it was switched out to a 300B amp, and the rest of the system remained the same. Not even close.

From reading the 6moons review of the F1 I sense it has to be very carefully matched to the other components. Within a well matched range it supposedly is spectacular, outside that and it doesn't work. I'd start there and of course email Pass about it.

Interesting insight so far, not as promising as I had thought it might have been. I am thinking of using it in my current system(emm labs front end, vonschweikert db99's and jena labs cabling) any thoughts? I have contacted first watt(which is seperate from pass) and they have been a great help so far, but I am curious about what consumers think.