The midrange clarity and soundstage are lovely, really suiting quieter acoustic music. While it lacked the muscularity of a higher-powered amp, it had no problem driving the speakers to ear-splitting levels with real class. It's way better than that, it blew me away. This being a low power amp, I was happy to be feeding it to very sensitive Klipsch Forte IIIs. Once I'd biased the channels (simple but finicky process) and checked for DC offset (almost negligible at about 3mV), I hooked the amp up to my usual Sugden IA4 running as a preamp.
Faults were easy to track down using the diagnostics supplied and first principles. Rest-assured, if you're a reasonably methodical person capable of following basic instructions, you'll be fine. I kitted-up with a basic soldering iron and a decent multimeter and took a deep breath. I bought this as a fun holiday project, and with appropriate reverence for the talents of Mr Pass, but with none for myself as I'd never soldered before. Finally I mounted it exposed on a wood base and added a level control to make balancing with the subwoofer easier. I mounted mine in an aluminum cabinet I built out of scrap, but I didn't like the looks. If you are into this kind of stuff you should have one anyways. About $50 at Home Improvement Big Box stores or Amazon. You need a good OHM meter and I recommend a auto calibration version. You really need two VOMs and solder in a few little pieces of wire at the test points to allow easy connection with small alligator clips and you'll be in "High Cotton".A nother issue is reading the resistors so you insert the correct ones. Easy to build and fun to set the bias as it is a little challenging. I've tried dozens of A,AB,D, Tube amps and nothing sounds as good as the F5v2.but other than raw power, this little guy holds its own. But once I built it and connected it to my Magnepan LRS and KEF LS50 Metas, as a bi-amped system, using the ACA Mini above 70hz.This little amp ain't going anywhere! I have a Pass Labs First Watt F5v2 that is my absolute reference amplifier.
At the time of this review the kit was $125. If they are inexpensive, I build them and give them away. I bought this kit simply because I like building kits.
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