I have a stock First Watt F4 amp that I may want to use for driving my forthcoming ~ 94db speakers. Presumably by now, there have been quite a few basic mods done on this amp. But what are those which most listeners found made the biggest improvements?
Yeah, these Firstwatt branded pieces are kind of special as they are. I don't think there is anything significant that can be done to it. Maybe installing motor run caps somehow. But when you get into tampering with it too much, it is much better to invest the money into starting from scratch with a UMS case and all of that. I mean, if you are going to learn to swim, just jump into the deep end right 😀
Again, my speakers will be ~ 94db/w/m in my 2880 cu ft room ; 11 ft triangular ceiling. While the room may not be considered big by Earl Geddes standards the speakers would likely need 5 wpc or so. The sound of horn speakers driven by a 300B SET amp is hard to beat, so looked to use on instead of the F4. But good ones are usually very unaffordable http://www.airtight-anm.com/
Looking instead for a line stage to drive F4, Manley has this 300B SET preamp https://www.manley.com/hifi/neo3br But the price is twice what I'd want to spend and only outputs ~ 5,6v maximum. That would likely generate excessive distortion and might even invite the risk of hazardous transients that could vaporize my drivers.
Alternately, which might be among the best tube-based commercially built line stages to drive the F4 for my speakers-but which can make the F4 sound the most like a 300B SET amp-even if it didn't use 300B tubes?
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