By , Pass Labs had outgrown Nelson's home shop space, and building was begun in a new location. In , operations were moved to a new facility in Foresthill. Today, Pass Labs runs out of a facility in Auburn, California. In , Sammut took over as president, followed by Harrington in ; he remains in this role today. With presidential duties off his plate, Pass was able to devote his time to product development. Over the years, Pass has secured seven patents. As far as what's next, it's safe to say new ideas are always on the table.
Nelson Pass is driven by a deep passion and drive to create high-end, niche amplifiers. In , he started First Watt as his "kitchen table" creative outlet. First Watt allowed Pass to play around with ideas free of the need to think about profitability. His focus was minimalist low wattage Class A amplifiers with interesting designs and performance.
These amplifiers are out of the mainstream and reflect quality in simplicity and intrinsic linearity, often with little regard to performance specs. Production is very limited. At first, First Watt kept up production of Pass Labs' former Aleph amplifiers, which for a time were being produced by Volksamp until When Pass started First Watt, he continued making Aleph amps. First Watt initially produced power trans-conductance amplifiers or technically a power current source.
These current domain amplifiers are only suitable for use with certain types of speakers. In , when Pass could no longer handle the sales volume on his own, he turned business and production over to Pass Labs.
There's a synergy here, in that Pass Labs gets to gather some of the more interesting First Watt finds and repurpose them into more commercially viable products. Nelson Pass has been involved in the DIY audio scene since , where he has grown to be affectionately known as "Papa. Followers say that Pass has a knack for distilling complex engineering concepts down to digestible bits of information for audio newbies and those without a scientific background.
What's neat is that it's a two-way street. People who want to build their own amplifiers get advice from Pass himself, and Pass has an audience for some cool concepts that might not otherwise see the light of day. One look at the site and it's easy to see Pass's down-to-Earth, accessible style. One might wonder if there are enough hours in the day for Pass to keep up with Pass Labs, First Watt, and his DIY audio obsession not to mention family life; he's got a wife, Jill, and two grown sons.
Kent English, who handles global technical support for Pass Labs, sums it up nicely: "Nelson is one of those rare birds that finds his bliss in an activity that just happens to encompass his business.
In other words, it never feels like work. Work or play, countless audiophiles have enjoyed the fruits of Pass' talents for decades. There are always people who appreciate a decent explanation that gets to the meat and potatoes. I see it all as light entertainment with a little education thrown in. If you want to communicate with DIYers, you depend more on colorful analogies, a little hand waving, and very little differential calculus. I get lots of personal satisfaction out of the whole enterprise.
It gives me an outlet for some cool ideas and things that otherwise would stay bottled up, and I have an excuse to explore offbeat approaches purely for their entertainment value.
Alpha 0 amplifier released. Wayne Colburn joins as partner, designer. Joe Sammut joins as operations chief. Desmond Harrington joins as designer. X amplifier released. Nelson Pass starts First Watt.
Joe Sammut becomes president. First XA amplifiers released. Desmond Harrington becomes president. Pass Labs takes over business end of First Watt. Jam Somasundram joins as designer. HPA-1 headphone amplifier released. This integrated amplifier sets a new benchmark in significantly narrowing any perceived performance gap between separate components and integrated amplifiers. This larger class A operating envelope brings lower distortion and greater loudspeaker control, delivering higher quality musical fidelity for your enjoyment.
Our New Point 8 Series, X. Designed for audiophiles by even more demanding audiophiles, they invite listeners into the music as never before. Even more, they represent a summation of our expertise in designing amplifiers, while elegantly expressing our philosophy of more amplifier, more progress and more music.
Entering their 22nd year of production, the X and XA power amplifiers have remained at the cutting edge of audio through continuous innovation and refinement. At Pass we build amplifiers with excessive output stages, huge heat sinks and massive power supplies.
The new XP starts with a new power supply. It uses an efficient toroidal design with both an electrostatic and Mu metal shield along with vacuum impregnating and epoxy fill. This gives us a very quiet transformer both electrically and mechanically. The power supply circuitry itself is also lower noise and has additional filtering, a little more complicated but worth it. XP17 uses the new-shielded low noise toroid and input filter module, like the XP The power supply has an extra stage of RC filtering.
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