you know I don't mean to brag but I really do love my job as an audio reviewer I've been doing this for over 25 years and getting to play with all of these really cool toys yeah it is a lot of work I got to tell you this is a lot of work to do reviews um but just that I have access to this cool stuff is incredible but anyway let's get to the subject at hand today which is as you probably know the first watt S5 the sit 5 now it is designed by Nelson pass it's his company and it's also manufactured in California it is a class A single-ended Design now the output transistor is pretty special it's a sit a static induction transistor the one in this amplifier is made by tonen in Japan and Nelson pass has been obsessed with using this particular device because it sounds well some say tube like triod like I wouldn't go that far but it doesn't sound like a typical solid state amplifier or even other class A amplifiers no this is its own uh Magic it's its own sound which I really really love and I know they look cool in pictures stacked one on top of the other but it's not really advised that you place them that way in your system I have them on separate stands actually so I just want to point out here that Nelson pass designs all the first wat amplifiers but he also designs for his other company past Labs he designs all the past Labs amplifiers so why does he have these two very different companies well here's the deal uh first Watt specializes in low powerered class A single-ended amplifiers and pass labs are also Class A but they're much bigger amplifiers they're much more powerful amplifiers and P lab amplifiers can drive just about any speaker imaginable but that's not true for first wat amplifiers first wat amplifiers are let's say finicky they want to play well with certain speakers and they're not going to be so great with other speakers so they are not Universal you can hook them up to anything no not really that's why he has these two companies first Watt and pass Labs let's take a look at the numbers this amplifier puts out 35 watts into 8 ohms 60 watts into 4 Ohms it is a class A zero feedback single-ended design it comes by the way with silver or black face plate I think it looks nicer with the silver face plate looking at the rear end you'll see a single RCA input a decent set of goldplated binding post a rather large rocker switch that's the power switch there's no power switch on the front power switch is always on the back on first wat amplifiers you do a little reach around to turn it on as for the speakers used in this review uh well it was the pure audio project do at 15 the clips ojz speaker the K R1 those are both High sensitivity speakers but I needed a low sensitivity speaker and I don't really have that many low sensitivity speakers so I scratched my head thinking what oh and then I remembered I had stashed away a pair of magnan SMG planner magnetic speakers these this particular pair was made in 1986 I haven't played them in a couple of years I pulled them out hooked them up to the sit five and that that knocked me out there's a lot more about that later on in the review but that was really special that combination for comparison amplifiers just to put the sit 5 to some sort of context I listened to it and compared it against the past Labs xa25 also Class A designed by Nelson and also the sit4 the first wat sit4 which uses the exact same output transistor as the sit 5 the static induction transistor made by tonen that was really interesting the rest of the review system well it consisted of the linear tube audio micral preamplifier the mola mola daak the J's audio CD transport the cdt2 turntable was the techniques sl1200g the cartridge I only use one cartridge for this review and that was the oraon Cadenza blue and with a stepup Transformer an oraon Transformer the st90 the phono pramp was not my usual parasound I'm right now I'm using a quicksilver tube phono pramp so that is the rest of the system oh the speaker cables I'm using these new nordest Red Dawn speaker cables now I've used nordis speaker cables most the time in my reviews and this new generation of Red Dawn is fantastic oh I just realized I forgot to mention the price the first watt sit 5 sells for $111,000 a pair that's with a black or silver face plate the sit 4 which is a logical comparison here that's a stereo amplifier that sells for $5,000 silver or black and the pass Labs xa25 sells for $5,150 now getting to the sound of the sit five I want to put this in context I've heard a lot of first SWAT amplifiers in this room the J2 the F7 the f8 the sit 3 the sit4 and now the sit five plus other P lamps amplifiers but the sit five sounds different part of the difference is the power but I think part of the difference is just the amplifier itself it has this Lush romantic full quality I shouldn't use this analogy but it sounds analog it has this body to the sound this warmth this beauty not t be I mean some people might call that tuby I don't think so but anyway it's just a gorgeous sound and I was playing you know a familiar recording like uh the beetle Sergeant Pepper and I'm listening into it and this was with the Purity project speakers and thinking I have never heard this record sound this way in in a way that struck me as more psychedelic like the whole idea of the album is to be psychedelic music and that weird spatial thing that's going on in the stereo mix which I much prefer to the mono I know some people say the mono is better me I'm a stereo guy 100% anyway Sergeant Pepper filling the room room blooming just oozing out of these speakers was a trip it was wonderful again I love my job when I can hear such familiar music sound and effect me in a completely different way and then I returned back to the past Labs xa25 which is my primary reference amplifier because it drives pretty much anything and a lot of this psychedelic quality this magic this Bloom that I heard with the sit 5 just by changing over to the Past laps XA 25 a lot of that got smaller uh it was more I don't know constricted uptight more focused more pinpoint but less luscious less beautiful yes I am seduced by Beauty I am attracted to Beauty I want I want to just feel more from the music and that's what the sit 5 and I do believe that the xa25 was more neutral more accurate more telling me exactly what it was that was going on in the recording I I understand that I think that that's probably true but I'm not here writing a scientific report or listening to music in that way in an analytical way I'm listening to music to feel it and sit five was doing that like no other amplifier I've had in this room in my memory that I can recall so I was well knocked out by the sit five so what I'm saying here is that if you are the kind of audio file who wants to hear accurate sound what is in the recording what is in the lp what is in the CD what is in the Stream as precisely and as neutral as possible just the facts the sit five is not for you I would go so far as no uh first White amplifier would be the right choice for you no matter of fact I would say not being too snarky about it check out the NAD M23 classy amplifier I really like that amplifier I really really do but that is more neutral accurate flat whatever you want to call it that's what that amplifier is providing and if that's what you're searching for go for it up to this point all of my listing tests were done with the pure audio project duet 15 it's an open baffle speaker but I wanted to switch over to the clips oess K1 and compare the sit 4 to the sit 5 now the K R1 is a very high sensitivity speaker it's 97.5 DB sensitive and uh this was interesting oh and the music that I was playing was this artha Franklin record recorded in 1962 this is really interesting because this is before she moved to Atlantic like three years later where she had all of her hits she made records for Colombia she didn't have any hits but this album which I never heard before uh sounds so good this is a really different more arranged kind of production for artha but this track I'm wandering wow it is so how did I miss this all these years this is over 60 years old this recording and it's blown me away what she's doing she is well she's a little bit younger than she was on Atlantic so she's actually sounds even stronger and more powerful and anyway so on the sit for amplifier driving the clip speakers that immediacy that connection between me and Rea felt strong really strong like she is right there and when I switched over to the sit five she wasn't quite as much there the sound bloomed more it had more body more Soul more voluptuousness but going to the sit 4 it actually felt I I felt a more of a connection to artha with the sit 4 than the sit 5 over the k1s that really surprised me but again that's the whole point of this is that it's not that one is better than the other to sit four the sit five it's they sound different and whether their difference in sound the more immediate sounding sit 4 versus the Richer more voluptuous sit five how does that play with the speaker that you're connecting it with and the whole rest of the system and of course the room that you are listening in so at this point I wanted to mix things up again I put the pure audio project speakers back into the system and I'm listening to the sit 5 and the album was Paul McCartney unplugged this was the unplugged session he did for MTV so it's TV show you probably see it on YouTube and he sounds great it's I think 1984 so it's the it's still still young Paul McCartney he's doing some Beetle songs he's doing some of his own song he's doing covers it's a very it's a beautiful session very relaxed but I'm struck by how real it was how Paul was right there this is sitf pural Project Paul was right there the band was right there I could hear the spaces between the instruments it was just one of those moments where I'm thinking does it get better than this is this it's just like I can't imagine how this music could be any better than this that doesn't happen so I almost never used the word realism to describe the sound of recorded music at home but this music had that realism thing it's just sounded more real that I'm used to hearing so I'll use the other cliche the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up because Paul Young Paul was right there yep again this is why I love my job because I get to have these experiences and I'm sharing them with you that some of you at some point may experience something similar whether it's with a a first wad amplifier or P AIO project listening to familiar music and getting to hear it in a different way maybe just by changing from one cartridge to another if you have tube amplifiers changing the tube around moving your speakers and by the way speaking of moving speakers I stress that but I what I haven't stressed is you move your listening position move relative to the speakers you know pull out a chair move it around get closer you just do these experiments and it will be an ear openening experience of how your familiar speakers your system sounds different depending on where you are relative to the the speakers up to this point I've only listened to the high sensitivity speakers the pure audio project and the clipped OJ speaker so it was time to insert the magnan SMG planner magnetic speaker which is very low sensitivity uh Weir impedance load it's not an easy speaker to drive how would the sit 5 deal with that and I hooked it up and it really was like wow I mean it's a it's a dipole design there's just as much sound coming out of the back and the front and I set them up I didn't even spend a lot of time fussing with the setup I set them up and I had that wall of sound effect you know it was just big and spacious and instruments sounded closer to life siize through the magnet pants through these little magnet pants I mean they're still 4 and 1 half feet tall these little magnet pans and thinking they're great these speakers this this specific model was made in 1986 and it was restored sometime in the 2000s so it is interesting to compare and I did back in the day the SMG to the magnan lrs plus the lrs plus is dramatically more transparent faster clearer better definition based in every way in that sense it's a better speaker the lrs plus so obviously I was digg in the sound so I decided again I want to compare the sit 5 to the Past XA 25 put that on the Maggie and the sound popped you know it had more Edge definition it sounded faster it sounded clear but I would actually say it leaned over to sound kind of bright which is not a sound I would normally associate with these speakers so there was more that kind of detail but it it almost sounded like a bit too much now again if I had messed around with the speaker placement I could have figured that out but at this point I wasn't moving the speakers between one amplifier and the other this was the difference between the sit 5 and the pass XA 25 so at this point I decided to put the pural projects back into the system with the sit 5 and I'm looking through my record collection figuring out what am I going to play next and I pulled out this one the bar C soulfinger now they had a hit maybe even a number one with soulfinger I just love that track but the whole album was fantastic the grooves the baselines were just like I could feel it like this was a thrill again this is a really old record this record is like 60 years old or so and yet it had this Vitality this life this energy that was knocking me out I think I am now ready for so Steve what do you really think of the first watt sit five monoblock amplifiers well as I've said earlier I have a lot of experience with first White amplifiers and a lot of experience with low power and amplifiers in general and this one the sit 5 is uh more powerful than those it's still not a really powerful amp it's 35 watts into 8 60 watts into four but but it's more powerful enough that it's in a different category than all the other first Watts the fact that it can drive magnet pans or other low sensitivity speakers this never happened before with first White amplifiers so I love it for that and using it with high sensitivity speakers like the pur project they just lit up but again I'm not going to say that the sit 5 is a universal amplifier that'll make every speaker sound amazing or amazing in ways that you might want it to sound amazing right it has this extra warmth this voluptuous quality that may not be what you're looking for it's not everyone's cup of tea right so is you know how can I say this for what it does in terms of being solid state that has that kind of body to it it's amazing it really is amazing and for me personally I think it challenges the xa25 because as much as I love it and I've used the xa25 for a year was like five years now as my primary reference this is a challenge to the xa25 for me because of what I'm searching for in music so it's probably going to be around here as one of my my new references that as I'm reviewing speakers of a certain price range this is an expensive amplifier after all I will insert uh the sit five into those reviews I think I think that's the plan what I'm going to do so anyway yes I mean I expect a lot from Nelson pass because well can I say it yes he is a genius he is just and an artist he's more than a genius because I think his approach is not just trying to make better measuring amplifiers I think he's trying to make more beautiful sounding amplifiers and this one yeah it's right on the money that's what it does so well and speaking of so well yeah it is now time for a very special AO philiac viewer system of the day Grant sent in these pictures he lives in Quebec Canada it's little bit of a backstory on this one but I'm going to first go through uh the gear itself there's a morance 2230 amp and also morance 1060b amplifier speakers are kef Koda 3 cassette DEC NAD 6240 the turntable is a Thoren TD 145 with an oraon red cartridge there's also a custom DIY switching box CD player Den on 910 there's also Yamaha hs50m powered studio monitors the 2230 and the Thor were found on the curb on the street they were garbage but they're not because they actually work perfectly fine and the 1060b uh actually came from a friend who had passed away and left it to Grant that's it thank you grant that's a great story all right we are back my name is Steve Guttenberg it's true I am the aop philiac and I'm proud of it but if you dig what I'm doing here on the Channel please consider joining my patreon and for the last year or so uh I have been making exclusive videos that can only be seen on my patreon website so never shown here on YouTube they're not reviews I will tell you that I don't make reviews just for patrons but I make all sorts of other videos that are only visible to my patrons and so anyway check that out and with that I can say my work here is yes at last complete thank you so much for watching and I truly do hope to see you back here again very very soon byebye