first watt

Review: Zu Audio Druid Mk V Speakers

December 25, 2016

by John Richardson Zu Audio, a small company based in Ogden, Utah, represents to me the absolute modern American success story. I love everything about it: the quest for audio perfection, the pursuit of a dream of doing something differently, and [...]

Review: J2, SIT-1, and F7 First Watt amplifiers by Nelson Pass

September 9, 2016

by John Richardson A Clutch of Amplifiers Let’s start this review with a little chat about First Watt and its founder, Nelson Pass. As experienced audiophiles, I’m assuming we all are at least somewhat familiar with Mr. Pass and his work. He’s [...]

CAS 2014: Zu Audio with First Watt, K&K Audio, Rupert Neve and Rega

August 29, 2014

Over the last year, I seem to have become the designated hitter for the Zu Audio room. This is some kind of cruel joke on our readers, because I usually say the same thing. It’s probably going to be some variation on the theme of Zu trading a [...]

CAF 2014: Zu Audio with First Watt is transcendent

August 14, 2014

Is it ruining the suspense to say that the Zu Audio room at CAF received quite a few votes for Best-In-Show? Probably. But for those in attendance, it was hardly a surprise. It’s true, the rooms that the Zu crew set up are always a little [...]

Magnepan and Tekton meet Pass Labs, Odyssey, Job, Merrill, Red Wine Audio, First Watt and Vitus Audio

November 27, 2013

Amplifier Madness Filed Under: Why The Hell Not. Wild hair? Yeah, maybe. Two over-achieving and “moderately priced” transducers fell into my Magical Hand of Loudspeakers — the Magnepan 3.7s and the Tekton Designs SEAS Pendragon [...]

RMAF12: Welcome (back) to the Zu

October 20, 2012

I tend to think of a Zu Audio demo room as “The Land of Music That I Don’t Recognize”. I want to believe that it’s because I’m old, but unfortunately for that theory, Zu’s Sean Casey and I are the same age. So [...]

Mini Review: First Watt J2 Amplifier

October 8, 2012

I reached out to Nelson Pass of First Watt this summer and asked the “what’s what with First Watt”. By way of response, Nelson agreed to send me a pair of amps — starting with the J2, a 25wpc (into 8ohms) solid state amp that [...]

Second Thoughts: Digging into the eFicion F300

September 14, 2012

As Luck would have it Bruce Jacobs, the self-described Old Audio Dude (and the Sales Manager for loudspeaker manufacturer eFicion), is wily fox. Given that the eFicion F300 loudspeakers that I had been so enamored of at RMAF 2011 were, by some wild [...]

A visit from Border Patrol and Living Voice

August 22, 2012

Gary Dews has, for the last several years, put together one of my favorite rooms at the Capital Audiofest. Who’s Gary? He is the man behind Border Patrol, and what he does is make amplifiers. Not just any old amplifiers, but 300B-based amps [...]