First Sound Presence Deluxe Preamplifier
First Sound first came out with a very high performance passive preamplifier more than twenty years ago. Emmanuel Go the man behind the company stunned the audiophile community about the merits of a passive preamplifer, not to mention the price tag for which is nothing more than a box, a selector, some wires and a volume pot. Passive means no amplification stage and no amplification means no distortion added. The success of passive preamps such as the First Sound preamps led many manufacturers to take another look at their own preamplifier designs – reducing the gain stages to just one, use premium internal wiring, chassis damping, stepped resistor potentiometers and selector switches, which contributes to a superior sound quality.
First Sound now offers a range of active preamplifiers. Acknowledging many audiophiles still prefer an active rather than a passive preamp, Emmanuel designed a new active preamp wit just one gain stage using a triode vacuum tube with a tube rectified power supply.
From the entry level ‘Presence’ series to the Paramount series and finally the top end Statement preamplifiers, Emmanuel’s objective is to create the same musical qualities of his passive design but with the benefits of an active line stage.
To this end, he employs a common construction using a damped copper plated chassis, full dual mono construction, one or more separate power supplies, premium audio grade internal wiring, premium selector switch and resistor pot potentiometers using Holco, Cadock or Vishay resistors depending on the grade of the preamp.
First Sound is now available at Jay Audio.
