First Watt SIT-4 Power Amplifier

Housed in a no-nonsense black box, the SIT-4 is a super cool power amplifier designed to drive sensitive speakers using esoteric components hand-picked from living-legend amplifier designer Nelson Pass.

First Watt is Nelson’s side project to his main business Pass Labs, which produces high power amplifiers for insensitive, hard-to-drive speakers. First Watt is a if-you-know-you-know kind of brand. Since many First Watt amps have used new old stock parts, they were produced in limited numbers as long as the stock lasted, which has made previous models quite collectable. In Nelson’s words “there is no such thing as a perfect amplifier, but there is a best amplifier for each speaker.”

I don’t claim to know which speaker the SIT-4 is best for, but I own most of the First Watt amps produced over the years, and I can say it is the best I’ve paired with my Klipsch/Ojas ko-r1 speakers. Typically, an amplifier that produces more power at higher impedances wishes to be paired with a speaker of 8 ohms or greater. Vice versa for the reverse, all things equal. The swap ability of first watt amps is part of the fun, though.