Ken Micallef from Stereophile….
 

Some pretty high praise for his Shindo in this video. He actually lets it slip that nothing has come close to beating it. Dual mono pre amp!

https://youtu.be/qU30sLMjjfw

And a more recent video.

https://youtu.be/Kg-Evg40LNY

Seems to be a theme with Stereophile reviewers. Art Dudley was a Shindo person as is/was another, whose name escapes me (oldheimers).

If Ken likes the Shindo, then he should hear my First Sound Presence Deluxe 4.0 III-SI preamp, as it's dual mono, as well.

https://photos.imageevent.com/puma_c...20MkIII-Si.jpg

In this design, the control unit is dual mono; you could effectively cut the control unit in half and each half would function independently. Oh, and the blue and brown wire is all Shunyata Research wire.

https://photos.imageevent.com/puma_c...20Interior.jpg

The chassis for the control unit is copper-plated, to function as a Faraday cage. You can see it under the paint in this photo of the dual mono volume controls, each with hand-trimmed inidividually installed Holco metal-film resistors for each step of gain.
https://photos.imageevent.com/puma_c...terior%201.jpg

Note the massive solid copper bus bars that connect all the inputs. The signal wires have no insulation, but rather use air as the dielectric.
https://imageevent.com/puma_cat/stereopix?p=327&w=3&z=2

Massive copper caps are in the signal gain stage as well...shown here:
https://photos.imageevent.com/puma_c...terior%203.jpg

And then the power supplies are dual mono as well, but, the First Sound they are external to the main control unit, and in their own individual enclosed chassis, to keep power supply noise well away from the signal gain stage.
https://photos.imageevent.com/puma_c...S%20%20LPS.jpg

Each power supply has...145,000 uF of power supply capacitance. And...dual Shunyata Research CCI-X noise filtration units in each power supply, to mitigate noise from the AC mains, as well as...more blue and brown Shunyata wire connecting the power supply caps. And the power umbilicals to the main control unit, are...yep, you guessed it, Shunyata Research wire, also. :thumbsup:

https://photos.imageevent.com/puma_c...20interior.jpg

All powered using Shunyata Alpha XC v2 power cables going into a Shunyata Everest power distributor. This bad boy is quiet....:thumbsup:

Honestly, I don't think the Shindo has got anything on the First Sound. Emmanuel Go of First Sound hand-crafts each preamp for each customer's other associated components in their system, so everything is maximally compatible.
Job done :D

While an impressive effort, long-term problems with corrosion on copper chassis & bare wires would keep me from being an owner of a First Sound. Suffered thru that before. Maybe that's the cost of living near the ocean............

Thanks great videos.

Hey Glenn,

The copper chassis is painted, so it won't corrode. Moreover, extremely pure, oxygen-free (Ohno CCC), copper doesn't oxidize. I recently opened up my 12 year old Shunyata Hydra 4, and the large copper bus bar in it is as clean and untarnished as it was new.

Additionally, to prevent any possibillity of "failure modes" with respect to oxidation, the copper wires for the signal jacks are coated with a clear lacquer, so they can't oxidize, either. The lacquer approach is exactly the same as what Paul Speltz of Anti-Cables uses, with the exception he uses a red rather than clear lacquer for his cables.

So..no oxidation problems. If you knew Emmanuel Go and the thoroughness of how meticulous he is...he's already thought all this through. Cheers, mate. :thumbsup:

Beautiful units and extremely great sound.

Needs a remote control....

That would make a great post for a First Sound thread in the First Sound section.

Wouldn't though [emoji2]?!?

That is if we actually had one for quality products like First Sound, Thraxx, Legacy, etc [emoji1787]