What can you tell me about First Sound pre-amps?

That was going to be my next suggestion, but TVAD beat me to it. Emmanuel will be on vacation until April 20th, after which we can ask him about the possible nepherious effect of Holco resistors on the brittle brightness of brashingly brassy brass, the moral philosophy of dual unstacked stepped attenuators, and other such esoteric matters.
In the meantime, replacing Gabrieli on modern brass with Gabrieli on sackbuts, ebony and rosewood cornettes, serpents and pendulous serpentones may alleviate your suffering and prevent all cavity fillings from shattering prematurely 'in situ'!

I'm sure Mr.Go has his reasons for making the preamp with dual volume controls. Whether or not anyone thinks they are valid or not will probably not change his mind or make him say, "Gee that's a good idea. Why didn't I think about that?"

well, well, well, here's a gem for the taking....

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?preatube&1118799988

Emmanuel answered my question to day regarding his use of dual volume controls vs. a stacked control:

The reason I do not use stacked volume control is to maintain the "dual mono" configuration. All First Sound units have separate volume controls, selector switches, circuit boards, power capacitors for the left and the right channels on the main chassis. This style of construction greatly enhances the channel separation. If one were to use the stacked attenuators, this will increase the possibility of "cross talk" simply because the left and right channel attenuators are close to each other.

Can't argue a purist design!