Firstwatt F7 mini review

Just a question, has anyone got to the 2nd watt of those Firstwatt amps? And if so, how was the experience? :band:
 
Ha! There is an internal jumper you can remove to release the other watts, not for the faint-hearted!

Randy, Dick Olsher is a tube lover so his comparison to the F3 was meaningful in that I think it was his preferred SS amp with tube like qualities. I agree the review was light on details of sound characteristics (compared to sixmoons review for sure!). FYI I find that calling Mark at Reno gets better results than emailing.
 
Well Mark believes that the First Watt will be a little light for my LS50s which are 85 db sensitivity. He suggested the Pass amplifier, XA-30.5 I think. But that is a bit higher price than I would be looking for right now. I might try calling him anyway. He also said they do not do trades on any amplifiers below the $6k mark... therefore I am not sure. The Pass sounds pretty good but will it really sound better than the Goldmund? :D
 
Randy,

Having owned almost everything, of course :audiophile:, I feel the KEF LS50 benefit more with an amp like the JOB as opposed to the Pass anything except maybe one of their Class AB type amps. The only other amp type I'd recommend for the LS50 is a moderately powerful tube amp, but I don't feel you want to go down that path. I feel those KEF, like Harbeth and similar benefit from a more open, lighter, airy 3D amp.
 
Thank you for the input Joe. That means a lot! The up keep on a tube amp makes me just a wee bit cautious... Also, anything decent seem to have too high a price, ARC, McIntosh, etc.

Knowing what I like in sound, the "British" sound, open, vocals, tight bass, don't care about rattling the walls, sound stage and imaging... KEF sound :)... and knowing that I have built from scratch in past few months so on fairly limited budget, is there any other amp you might recommend that would give me an even more wow factor than the Goldmund Job, or is this really the best bet at this point?
 
The Nord's like Joe has. Around $2000 for the stereo version. Another option for around the same price is the Odyssey Kismet.
 
The Nord are class D amp, right? How would they compare to something like the Wyred 4 Sound Class D amps? W4S has their new Statement amps coming out within a couple months.

Where do you get the Nord amps? The sight I found seemed like a European site.
 
For $3k I'd try the Benchmark AHB2 100W amp. You can order directly from Benchmark with their 30 day trial period.
 
Right they are based on the Hypex NC500 as opposed to the 3rd Gen ICE modules used in the W4S amps. I have both in house right now plus the Nuprime ST-10 which uses Nuforce/Nuprime's on version of Class D. I forgot to mention the Nuprime before, but is a great little amp and you can try it for 30 days from all of their regular dealers plus Audio Advisor. You just pay the shipping back if you don't like it. John Casler, who is one of EJ's dealers carries Nuprime and W4S and he is not too far from you.

The Nord amps are only available direct from the UK.

You might want to ask EJ or Tony what modules they are going to use in the Statement amp I couldn't find any info. Don't know if it will sound much different than the mAMPS or the ST series. I think the Statement series items are going to be in a higher price bracket looking at the casework.
 
Tony told me that the Statement is going to be greatly improved. I did not know enough to ask him what modules are going to be used. We were also talking about SST, which I believe they also own.

"We played the beta Statement and the Son at last years RMAF and have to say, the Statement was a huge eyebrow raiser. Everyone who heard it loved it (we got many nods in magazines and a Best of Show in a popular forum. "

We are going to probably do a amplifier shoot out when the Statement is available. Might be fun, the Son of Ampzilla II, the Statement and the Goldmund. I think it will be a blast!
 
You'll be hard pressed to find better class D at any price than the Nords with the new SIL 994 based input buffer. If you're looking for something neck and neck, checkout the Bel Canto Black amp.
 
Randy,

I used the Nord One Up amps on the LS50 for 3 weeks straight to break them in with the Sparkos op amps. It was wonderful, especially for my taste.

I suspect the new op amp, 994, that Mike recommends might be even better. The Nords delivered from the UK might be $2200-2300 or a bit more depending on the new pricing.
 
The stereo version which is two boards and power supplies in one box is about $250 less. Plus just one power cord to worry about, which works better in some peoples systems especially if all of your cables are based around that placement. The Statement like the Bel Canto is also meant to be a different price point. Randy, the only way to know which flavor of Class D you like is to listen to them. While that is possible with the W4S and Nuprime, don't think that is the case with the NCORE amps as there are only a few OEM's around.
 
Randy

Might want to take a look at this. Great amp at a great price and just down the road from you in Thousand Oaks. You can read the reviews at TAS and others.

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=141762.0

Randy, I've owned the Job for over 2 years and it is a really good amp with the right speaker, load wise. It works great with some of the speakers I have or have had and not so well with others. The most important thing I could find that caused it was the speakers impedance curve.
 
Hey jack,

Thanks for the suggestion. My friend Chops, who came over here from another forum had one of the Odyssey Kismet amplifiers with his Sonus Faber speakers. He traded amps with his brother as a test and they ended up staying with the trade. His brother liked the Odyssey more. If I recall what Chops said, his brother is a hard rocker and liked the power of the amp. Chops likes the sound quality of the amp he got from his brother. Better match with his speakers, better image etc. That amp that he keep and is still using is a Wyred 4 Sound ST-250.

Maybe Chops will read this thread and weigh in.
 
Randy

The Odyssey amps are slightly to the warm side of neutral as are the SF's so Chops may have thought it too much of a good thing. My mAMPS are a generation after the ST-250 and they are more neutral so maybe a better match for SF. Tommy and Woody both have Kismet amps and use them with speakers from Vapor and Philharmonic. Might want to see if EJ will let you listen to an ST-500 Mk II. Didn't you say that they were using KEF speakers at the shop. The warmer nature of the Odyssey or the Nord/Sparkos combo might be a better fit for the KEF's. All depends on the "sound" you are looking for. Maybe the guy in Thousand Oaks will let you listen if you want to drive down.
 
Yea, EJ and crew like to demo their products with KEFs and hey recently bought a pair of Reference 3s to use and demos and show. Tony mentioned doing an amp shoot out. Maybe I can get them to use the Ref 3s :)....
 
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