2. amps-preamps
  3. 1210567316

First Watt F4

Not much in the forums about this Nelson Pass design. I've had this amp (actually an F4 clone) running into my Druids for a couple weeks now, and it's pretty stunning. No voltage gain, just current gain, which is a great match for high efficiency speakers and a relatively high gain preamp like my Jolida Music Envoy. Dead quiet at the speaker, and fabulous inner detail. I tried Monarchy SM-70 Pros, Sonic Impact Super-T, and Almarro A205A, and the F4 is easily the best of the bunch.

If you have Druids or any other over 100 dB speakers, the F4 is worthy of an audition.

David
armstrod
armstrod OP
617 posts
 
Indeed, I find it interesting that the iterations of the First Watt series aren't meant to be improvements on the predecessor, but are completely different designs aimed at solving a different problem. The fact that he releases the schematics for DIYers to build is pretty amazing too.

David
darkmoebius
900 posts
 
Yep, Nelson only makes something like 100 of each F-series model and then gives away all the design info and schematics to the DIY community for free.

On top of that, he actually guides DIY'ers through how to make them on his Pass Labs forum on DiyAudio.com. I've been waiting to see the feedback from the first builders of the F5.
pubul57
3,712 posts
 
Any impressions of the F5 yet?
More to discover