[Puma Cat]

Thought the gang would like to see some pics of the interior of the First Sound.

Top view without the covers; there are only two tubes, a 6DJ8 and OA tube per channel. The preamp is a true dual-mono design; two mono preamps mounted in a single chassis.



Just some, but not all of the power supply capacitance...and yes, that blue and brown wire is Shunyata Research OFE wire connecting everything. Emmanuel Go and Caelin collaborated on incorporating several Shunyata technologies into First Sound preamps. The 6DJ8 triodes can also be seen in this photo. These tubes are super-durable, with mean life over 100,000 hours.



The back panel shows input jacks, wiring and huge copper bus bars for making and grounding connections. Note that there is no ground wire for each RCA jack, only a single + connection. There is also no insulation on the wires so as to not have any dielectric effect from various insulation materials; the dielectric in this case is air. The entire copper bus bar serves a ground for all inputs. There is also a switch (little red box) for each channel that lets me float the ground in the advent of any ground hum (there isn't; this preamp is DEAD QUIET).


A close-up of the volume attenuator with individual metal film resistors.


There are also large, heavy, copper bus bars for chassis-grounding.


AudioCap copper capacitors.



A view of the front panel and part of the chassis interior...