Bringing the SET 300b/Altec 19 honeymoon to a screeching halt...Pass First Watt F5

[Adda]

Oops. Undskyld mid. I see you can enjoy the midnight sun unlike most of us in the States.

Perhaps the DIY community will get access to the SemiSouth devices.

I tend to forget people live in the US, even though this is mostly an American forum

We can hope, or that one of the semiconductor companies makes a compatible part sometime.

As far as I know, those SIT's are required to make certain radar equipment.

 

[E-Stat]

I tend to forget people live in the US, even though this is mostly an American forum

There's plenty to see and do across three million square miles of space. Closest I've gotten to Denmark was on trips to Scotland. That and wearing Royal Copenhagen cologne.

As far as I know, those SIT's are required to make certain radar equipment.

Exactly. The criteria are similar.

 

[Ken Boyd]

I don't understand where the hi dollar cost are on those amps. Perhaps someone can help explain just what makes them so magical, is it topology, a certain component somewhere in them? I don't see anything really out of the ordinary other than the lack of caps, other than in the power supply.

 

[Adda]

I don't understand where the hi dollar cost are on those amps. Perhaps someone can help explain just what makes them so magical, is it topology, a certain component somewhere in them? I don't see anything really out of the ordinary other than the lack of caps, other than in the power supply.

The cost is whatever people are willing to pay I guess, DIY kits are usually very reasonably priced though.

The idea behind FirstWatt amps is in the name, they are meant to sound as good when outputting less then 1w, as they do at max output.
Many amps distort more at less then 1w then they do when being pushed, some amps even distort more at less then 1w then at max power.

They are very simple, there seems to be a correlation between using just a single complementary pair of output devices (or less) and good sound.
Of cause the amp has to be well designed as always, but making a good amp using very very few components is hard, you can't just throw more components in there to solve issues with the circuit.

And lastly, fewer parts means less can go wrong, so these FirstWatt amps have the potential to last a very long time, and fixing them will be easy (well unless you burn a transistor in one of the SIT series amps).

Of cause, you could see all that as BS, but FirstWatt has a solid following, in spite of the rather poor specs, so there must be something special going on here.

 

[GuyK]

I don't understand where the hi dollar cost are on those amps. Perhaps someone can help explain just what makes them so magical, is it topology, a certain component somewhere in them? I don't see anything really out of the ordinary other than the lack of caps, other than in the power supply.

The dollar cost for the DIY F-5's comes from parts cost. Many builders use boutique caps and resistors, binding posts, big power supply transformers, etc., and these can be expensive. However, since these are class A amps, they dissipate a lot of energy as heat. Therefore the heatsinks need to be enormous, and consequently enormously expensive. It can cost a couple hundred bucks for those alone.

 

[cdfac]

I thought this would be tomlinmgt's response. :yes: It's just a wonderful amp design, and easy to "build right."

One reason I was able to let it go was that I knew I could eventually build one again if/when I wanted one. But I want to be clear that "westend" was the guy that worked the magic on this one. I basically sent him the assembled boards and most of the other parts, and he went "Chuck Norris" on this amp. I'm not sure I ever properly thanked him on this. He fashioned the chassis together, did all machining, built the shielding for the transformer, did all point-to-point wiring, and probably even more. I had the easy part in comparison! And IMHO, while there are some superficial resemblances, this blows Rawson builds out of the water. He has little attention to detail from the amps I've seen.

But I'm already itching to build one again. I'm lucky to have a 50Wpc Class A amp to lean on now, but I enjoyed the F5 every bit as much -- for some speakers, it was an even better match.

 

[tomlinmgt]

I thought this would be tomlinmgt's response. :yes: It's just a wonderful amp design, and easy to "build right."

One reason I was able to let it go was that I knew I could eventually build one again if/when I wanted one. But I want to be clear that "westend" was the guy that worked the magic on this one. I basically sent him the assembled boards and most of the other parts, and he went "Chuck Norris" on this amp. I'm not sure I ever properly thanked him on this. He fashioned the chassis together, did all machining, built the shielding for the transformer, did all point-to-point wiring, and probably even more. I had the easy part in comparison! And IMHO, while there are some superficial resemblances, this blows Rawson builds out of the water. He has little attention to detail from the amps I've seen.

But I'm already itching to build one again. I'm lucky to have a 50Wpc Class A amp to lean on now, but I enjoyed the F5 every bit as much -- for some speakers, it was an even better match.

Critical as I may try to be, I struggle to find anything less than outstanding about the layout and execution of the construction of this amp. Westend does some very nice work, indeed. The hum that was spoken of can be heard with the Altec 19's, but it's inaudible from the listening position and bothers me not the slightest. Mondialfan just built a pair of Alephs and wants to have a look at the F5, so I'll probably have him look into the hum while he has it. But otherwise it's simply an incredible sounding amp. Yesterday I was listening to an Adcom GFA-5500 I have for sale and after an hour or so with that playing I stuck the F5 in. The difference was stunning. Even going back to back with the SET mono blocks is an eye opener. The clarity, impact and speed is just fantastic.

 

[Larry I]

A friend let me try his First Watt amp (I believe it was a J2) for a couple of weeks. I used it in my high efficiency system in lieu of my 6 watt parallel SET amp (Audionote Kageki). I found the amp to be terrific sounding--very clear, lively, and harmonically rich sounding. Although good sounding in all respects, it does not quite match my SET amp in terms of a totally natural sound (sense of ease, natural sounding initial attack and decay of notes) and the sense of a very large and enveloping soundstage. That said, I could easily live with the First Watt amp and it delivered reasonably comparable sound quality at a small fraction of the current retail price of the Kageki.

In terms of operating characteristics, the amp is utterly silent at turn on and turn off (important with high efficiency speakers that there are no thumps and other noise issues). The only operational downside is that it takes a bit of time to warm up and sound its best after being turned on (might be a candidate for leaving on all of the time) while my tube amps sound good after just a few minutes.

I have not heard the various other series of First Watt amps, but, if they are anything like the one I borrowed, they would be worth looking into for a high end system.

 

[tomlinmgt]

A friend let me try his First Watt amp (I believe it was a J2) for a couple of weeks. I used it in my high efficiency system in lieu of my 6 watt parallel SET amp (Audionote Kageki). I found the amp to be terrific sounding--very clear, lively, and harmonically rich sounding. Although good sounding in all respects, it does not quite match my SET amp in terms of a totally natural sound (sense of ease, natural sounding initial attack and decay of notes) and the sense of a very large and enveloping soundstage. That said, I could easily live with the First Watt amp and it delivered reasonably comparable sound quality at a small fraction of the current retail price of the Kageki.

In terms of operating characteristics, the amp is utterly silent at turn on and turn off (important with high efficiency speakers that there are no thumps and other noise issues). The only operational downside is that it takes a bit of time to warm up and sound its best after being turned on (might be a candidate for leaving on all of the time) while my tube amps sound good after just a few minutes.

I have not heard the various other series of First Watt amps, but, if they are anything like the one I borrowed, they would be worth looking into for a high end system.

The fact that the FW unit you heard compares favorably to the AN SET says quite a bit, I'd say. :yes:

 

[Poultrygeist]

I've heard an F1 driving HS Horns and was impressed with it's vise like control of the bass. Any other amp with those small horns would require a sub.

Being a sucker for "tube bloom" I'd favor a SET in most situations.