Zooming with Nelson Pass about the sound of amplifiers
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ต.ค. 2024
- Steve checks in with Nelson Pass, there's lots to talk about! The sound of tubes and transistors, a new First Watt amp, the F8, that's coming soon. And how Nelson thinks about crafting the sound of his designs.
Pass Part 2, • More from Nelson Pass,...
First Watt www.firstwatt.com
Pass Labs www.passlabs.com
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PLEASE LIKE THIS VIDEO!
Nelson is like Santa Claus, Yoda, Einstein, and your favorite Uncle all rolled into one! Wonderful interview.
Spot on
Or the brother I never had but wanted dearly. :-)
The Papa Pass interviews are epic. Absolutely my favorites!
@Joe Home
Probably on a similar scale, for audiophiles. ~_^
Joe Home - as people age we decline physically but grow in wisdom so when someone laughs at old folks for their aging appearances = the old folks laugh at that person's ignorance, politely of course.
Thank God for Steve Guttenberg....helping us through difficult times.
Mister Nelson Pass is one of the best constructor in golden age of high fidelity reproduction of sound. Real living master.💎
Nelson Pass, a God among us mortals.
Thanks for another good interview with this incredible genius.
Always a pleasure to hear from Nelson...
Love listening to Nelson speak about just about anything. Great interview, guys.
Thanks, Steve and Nelson!
Oh! What a pleasure to listen again to Nelson Pass
I freakin' love Nelson Pass. This guy is the best! Thank you Steve. Thumbs up.
Never had listener fatigue listening to Nelson Pass. Saw his recent post to an article in Stereophile. What an absolute class act.
Chris Block ... I ‘dislike’ people like you. You are the cause of insufficient funds of the bank balance. 😂🤣
Listener fatigue, tubes, solid state, mid range, cello, voice and a Theramin...great conversation and points. Good stuff!
Totally on board with Nelson's amp personality concept . Every amp I've ever really liked had that. Someday a Firstwatt is my perhaps" retirement amp" . I want one now but have chosen an expat life and the pricepoint even used is beyond my capacity right now. A used J2 or SIT3 are my goal.
Thank-you Steve & Nelson. Everyday I learn new things.
Like my dear friend Nelson I always had Cellos my total favourites! Dr Solheim Norway
100% fun. Thank-you Steve and Nelson.
This man (Nelson Pass) deserve big thanks for his work. I had a Threshold 400 and I still miss it. That one, and Bryston 400 is the very best amplifiers I have heard.
Used tubes from early 60s thru 2011 - Dynaco, ARC, NYAL OTLs (awesome), Berning, marantz 5s at the end on my various Altecs, stacked Quad 57s and other cone speakers. I finally went sand amp with 2 First Watt F5s. Nelson was the first and only solid state designer to get me to abandon glowing glass. The high voltage SIT sounds very interesting, especially for big horn speakers.
"sand amp" -- good one!
What an amazing interview. Pleasure to hear such a class act guy! Thanks Steve!
The 'triode sound' discussion is especially delicious for me because I've bought a couple of Korg Nutubes and related PCBs to build a balanced preamp. This interview greatly broadens my understanding. I'm also sitting on one of Nelson's newer crossover projects which uses a huge PCB, and I got a big laugh with your shot of The Beast. The crossover isn't quite as bad, but I've had middle-of-the-night cold sweats several times when I think about soldering dozens-upon-dozens of JFETS and resistors. :)
Nelson is a treasure...and Steve-o, you're a treasure hunter! Thanks again.
We need a tube Nelson pass amp
I can vouch for those First Watt power cables. Nice and beefy. I've since sold the amp and repurposed the power cable.
Thanks for the interview
Nelson goes deep. I like him. I agree with his assessment of listening fatigue. It's all in the brain not being able to make sense of the sounds, thus has to work overtime and gets tired quickly. It can be as simple as having a noisy day at work (nearby crews are working with jackhammers all day long), where you go home and your otherwise excellent sounding system gives you listening fatigue after two songs and you shut it off, because your brain is done for the day in the auditory realm.
Nelson is a prolific designer. Out of college after I got my first paycheck I bought a nakamichi ta2. A stasis amplifier he designed. I’ve had it for 31y and it still sounds terrific.
I’d love to know if he has any favorite designs.
I remember seeing that beast of 1000 JFETs and thinking a small version would be nice for a headphone amp
He reminds me of a member of Crosby Stills and Nash from a parallel dimension
I love the way you do it when you do it
Great interview! Next you should try and get John Curl. I'm playing around with a Parasound HCA-1000 amplifier he designed right now, it's great fun...
A goldmine treasure trove of goodness
In Atlanta visiting my niece and her husband this weekend and he breaks out some megabuck Focal headphones he won on Massdrop . Crazy
Love the Amp Cam Kit. Any plans to put out some more kits for us? Preamp kit…?
He is a legend
I’m A very happy owner of the awesome INT -250
I have the INT-60, the power cord change the sound. Have you experience with the PC .
Two cool cats.
I like First Watt SIT 3
he's tha man!
Love Pass, own Pass, but I've thought a lot about whether break-in is real and the argument that you adapt to bad sound -- "the ear adjusts quite a bit" (16:56) -- just doesn't jibe with my experiences with new equipment. Some of it gets better, some of it doesn't. If your ear could make bad sound good, why would anyone ever upgrade?
Please explain Yamaha's natural sound line. To me, it's warm, but I love it.
Who knew that Papa Smurf was an audiophile?
Argh ! Zoom audio garbled some of the details about the amp that would be really nice to know. Oh well I'll just keep listening to my NP designed Threshold Stasis ;~)
Wish I could afford pass labs gear
Robbie's Incoherent thoughts, I could only afford building his Amp Camp Amp sold by DIY Audio. It was fun to build and is even more fun to listen to with a sensitive 96db Tekton 8 ohm speaker pair.
I can second what Michael Schroeder said...DIY Pass designs can sound incredible. I've had two, and they easily competed with the other top drawer amps I've owned from Classe, H20, etc..
Hey Steve - you're looking for suggestions for upcoming Audiophiliac Daily Show episodes are you not? Yes you are, so here are a couple of ideas related to todays episode. It's clear that you and Nelson Pass are good buddies as this is at least the third time you've featured him as a guest. What are the chances you could cajole John Curl or Bob Cordell to join you for a chat? Would love to hear from those audio amplification experts as I'm sure many of your viewers would. Good luck and keep up the great work.
Bob Cordell, yes! John Curl, not so much.
I made a friend with an 80 year old Radio, Hi-Fi, & T.V. etc Repairman and we were looking for a name to call what we were doing and I came up with 'FIRST WATT
Hey Steve I had a quick question about about amps... I'm looking to get into a good tube amp for a descent price... I have the klipsch r-51m speakers and I'd like to pair in the klipsch r-10sw subwoofer with it... I listen to a lot of different styles of music, but rock and metal are my main gotos... Is there an amp you can recommend
Have owned much pass and first watt I keep going back to the F3 it sure does gell with large front horns.
Any idea why none of the Pass gear on the website is 4Ohm-rated?
@@redstarwraith Ask Nelson he sometimes will reply
Use an amp that meets your musical taste and forget about the rest. For me it’s the solid low end of transistors vs tubes. I’m currently using a 40 year old MOSFET design.
If you want to experience not just a solid low end but a vice like manhandling of your bass driver, stop on a dime stuff, keep your 40 year old mosfet but also try a modern high end class D. Will knock your socks off.
I'M THINKIN OF FET a prescription for medical m. Will music sound as good as it did in my college days?
I love sound Ultra Linear mode Sound in class A push pull; good for heavy metal. I have at home part my hifi system is Radford mono block 100 wrms per channel; powering pair horn speaker with 15 inch Tannoy blacks.
Listening fatigue for me almost always winds up being too much output in the 250hz and 500hz range. Second most annoying area would be too much output in the 1000hz or 2000hz range
I think my 2nd ex-wife was a Theramin. A Theramin which refused to play in tune. A very sour instrument.
🤣🤣😷😷
All that time, if you had only gotten your hands on a good quantizer! Ha ha
VCO joke deployed...
Rest assured I am someone who can relate to the X Wife Yoke... 🤪🤦🏻♂️
What will it take to make the SIT transistors available to the DIY community?
Six figures or more.
Recommended preamps (with remote control) for first watt and amp camp amps? Thanks!!!
Did he say the phase angle of the second order harmonic distortion? How intresting
Why do you think solid state amplifiers with capacitive coupling and feedback have no 2nd order harmonic! Brain has to fill in that hole. :)
NP would never state that his method of amplification is the antidote for snakeoil; but alas it is!
People that buy audio amplifiers are a curious lot. Most think they know what circuits produce
the most authentic sound from a source. They do not!
i am building myself a stereo 807 class A amp i use Altec 604-8H speakers
Nelson... if you read this... please consider directing your tube ideas, or solid state tube sound emulation thoughts toward us Guitar amp people, who could very much utilize an amp, start to finish. Meaning (preamp through power amp), from you... the amp Magician/master technician. To give fun food for thought: I’ve often considered the idea of my Guitars, (having alnico magnets, in the input transducers), being very much more in tune, (no pun intended) with an output transducer on the output end of my amp, (The speaker of course) also being alnico based. Boom! Food for thought you’ve certainly already considered, yet... sending you the line of thinking of which my considerations sometimes take, therefor giving you something to chew on, when deciding if my words and thoughts directed to you have considerable merit.
If one needs a translator, it would be very helpful if that translator, in the end, is conveying that same complicated, yet basic feeling, of what was at the beginning of the chain of communication.
“Things need to be Cool! Without that Coolness, we will never feel the heat from a great performance.”
- Me
Thank you!
Always good hearing Nelson. Just not digging Steve's fake backgrounds on zoom...it's a disconnect with high end, organic, natural sounding audio....just my opinion for what it's worth. Nonetheless, Steve always does a great job!
These two Pass interviews are the last ones with virtual backgrounds
How many times have you done “zoomies” with Nelson and contemplated life and the universe?
Does anyone know what pre-amps are typically used with First Watt amps?
Pass pres, but all kinds
I use the First Watt diy B1 buffer for my FW amps. The boards and JFETS are available at www.passdiy.com. They are very reasonably priced!
I think you should change back to your room as background, because this virtual background is extremely distracting.
Done, after these two Pass interviews no more virtual backgrounds.
@@SteveGuttenbergAudiophiliac Nice, thanks.
I'm looking forward to that, because so far the content itself is great!
@@SteveGuttenbergAudiophiliac maybe just a solid color would have been better for the background.
Nelson Passed, my wife didn't.Audiophiles and WAF what a conflicting coexistence.
this is so important to have a video of Mr. Nelson I'm a member of diyaudio for a few years and I made a few solid-state amplifiers I never try the F5 or amp camp but I have data of his Adcom GFA-555 that he designed in 1980 they are good reviews of the design and I want to try out that one yes I'm member vargasmongo3435 diyaudio.com thank you for this videos 😊
Zoom sound quality very poor at times due to IP packet Loss! Nelson didn’t mention very little about the sound qualities of his Amp! Mostly about specs very little about the power output into 8 Ohms! Drops down to 4 Ohms very Quickly! It’s more difficult to drive 4 Ohms Loudspeakers than 8 Ohms! 99.999% of the people out there won’t have a clue about the parts he mentioning! Steve tried to get Nelson to talk more about how it sounds! But to no avail!
I wonder why he dislikes tubes.
I only buy Nelson Pass Amplifiers.
Good Call!
Wait, what happened to "Wish I could afford Pass Labs gear"?
Is there *that* much of a price differential in the gear he sells?
You just posted you couldn’t afford one.
Pick one
Zoom really sucks bad!!! Some of his important words were totally garbled up...Please don't use zoom again, It's worse than SKYPE !!
Zoom & Skype depend upon a good connection. Both are usually fine if connection is sufficient.
His shirts are banned in 17 states .... Fact
My God. What happened hair-wise?
Your face on screen is all the intro I need. Thumbs down on the loud intro music.
So Nelson does not understand why AC power cables make difference....Steve or Nelson contact me, we can make a deal, seriously.
I agree with Nelson Snake oil cab ling
@@bolsesolheim7469 Nope. AC cables most certainly do make differences, most AC cables make slight differences that could be described as snake oil, I'm talking about a whole different level that you most certainly have not experienced and cannot be mistaken. My contact reach out to Steve and Nelson is sincere.
@Yuvi A Yes and that's the point, custom cables do not need to be expensive.
This is easy. If your amplifier has a sound, throw it out. It's no good. Buy a real one.
cool discussion but it is so distracting (for me) to look at the awful simulated scene behind you.. it looks like a 5 year old made the video.
Zoom sucks.
"Personality" = distortion, and expensive distortion at that. Well I'll pass on that.