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

Guido - John is correct, i am in flux (once again). I am changing sources and preamps, and will eventually repost my system thread (all i did was make it private, it's not deleted), once it all shakes out. I do know that a Reimyo CDP777 is in play...with that in mind, I will want THE most transparent and neutral (still preferrably tubed) preamp i can find.

Art, concerning pres, I was recently very impressed by the sheer beauty, power and newtrality of the VAC Ren II. As mentioned already you may want to have a listen to the VAC PHI, on which the REN II was apparently based on. Like the Callisto, the VACs are fully balanced designs complete with phono stage. Another benefit is that they have ridiculously low output impedance. As for digital sources, I seem to have redeveloped a crush on the mighty Teac X-01.

Returning to this topic to revist the confusion around my use of the term "granular" to mean finer increments. I was running some focus groups a few weeks ago with IT managers who talked about the need to impose more "granular" restrictions on access to information, by which they meant, basically, finer increments. Maybe I picked up the term from the IT world. I knew I wasn't crazy. :-)

Drubin, the terms commonly used are:
Finer Granularity -- to indicate a trend towards smaller increments or more detail.
Coarser granularity -- to indicate a trend towards the opposite.

Guidocorona is a gentleman and a scholar.