This is a new and experimental Nelson Pass design and build. The amp in the wooden case is 5 wpc, the silver case is a very cool converter box for electrostatic HP’s. @dB_Cooper and i were so very fortunate to get a few minutes of HP time w/ it, we gave some very minor feedback on what we heard and I promptly put myself on the list to fork over some cold hard cash should it ever all become available
The gentleman in current possession was kind enough to explain to us in engineering speak what and why Nelson did what he did…I heard blah blah blah something something parts, reverse something something blah blah, wham-bam sweet sweet sound and yes it was. Warmish, clean and very Nelson Pass beautiful and sweet
Here are pictures that otherwise would not have made the light of day. We also figured out how many grown and oversized men you can stuff into a small hotel bathroom filled with new and exciting fun audiophile equipment. (4 BTW)
This reading makes my head hurt and will take me a while to read through once or three times to get even the slightest grasp of what he is talking about. At a glance though i bet money that yep, that’s probably it.
I loved it, i want one and hehehe, i got to listen to it💪
Check out this video, I believe they are showcasing the same or a similar amp. They say it’s not for sale but maybe that will change based on the amp both of you heard.
Adding a couple more pics to this as it was the highlight of the show for me. This is one of a few @M0N and this guy Greg or Gary or Gene… something, he’s an engineer friend of Nelson and he’s been getting a hold of the prototypes as they develop. It’s an amp basically. Five watts per channel no feedback but what he said they’re doing with it is inverting the signal or something like that to get rid of noise but then inverting the phase on the emmlabs DAC and what happens is that noise is lower on the first harmonics but the second harmonics are kept and that’s one of the things going on with this.
This is being powered by a 24 volt DC power supply. The little white thing there is supposed to be giving it 4 db of gain and the and the four jfet above it another 6 db of gain. The transformer feeds the billion jfets and they amplify the current not the voltage.
It sounded great. I’m not familiar with Estats but what I heard was smooth, musical, detailed and not fatiguing. It’s hard to get any more descriptive than that with open back headphones locked in the bathroom with an exhaust fan going and loud music playing in the room outside.
The guy said that this would most closely sound like a F7. For what it’s worth I heard the F7 connected to a pair of Cube speakers and liked what I heard a lot.
He said this will see production, unknown as to who will produce it at this time, whether First Watt or (forgot the other company he mentioned) run by a John (associated with Nelson) but it more than likely will not be a Pass Labs offering.
That’s all the regurgitated stuff I can give you from what I heard/recall.
Notice the FTA interconnect cables and the big brute emmlabs DAC so this was not being short changed by the chain. Can’t tell what the speaker cables used were as I couldn’t get in back there enough.
The silver box is only converting the line level signal from the amp and making it usable for the Estats.
It is something that looks like it could be released as a kit or schematic for DIYers, but reading the article mon posted finding the thousands of components needed seems like a task only dedicated to the most devoted.
Cant wait to see the final design. It would be cool to keep it vertical like they have. Maybe cover the sides with tweed like an old school guitar amp.
Ah-Ha! That was the 1 part of the conversation I WAS able to understand. The little J-Fets in the picture of this actual unit ARE available and that is why the amplifier was at the show and being demonstrated. With this particular J-Fet the design is possible because of availability. It is not the original piece noted in the earlier design, it is an available alternative part that he is experimenting with for sound quality.
That is an interesting nugget and moves this from curiosity to something actually buildable. They must have found a good alternative.
I have noticed that a lot of boutique and DIY designs are really dependant on specific components, especially fets and opamps. Alternatives are less obvious than it might seem, I am guessing as the designs are more like a kit sports car being dependant on being made to measure to achieve high performance - whereas something more mass produced will be less fussy but might struggle to reach the same heights.
