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

I think you'd have to get into a Callisto (the bgger brother of the Calypso) to meet/better the FS...

Tvad:
I don't mind anyone suggesting that it might be other components. Unfortunately, that's not the case. I've changed every single component in the chain and the brashness is there on nearly every record with brass instruments (but only on forte and up passages). And it's not the amp clipping, either. I even thought it might be the equipment stand ringing, so I changed that, too. It's still there. I've even borrowed equipment that is well balanced, such as the Ayre CD player, and it's still there. Of course, some may think it's the recordings, but I don't think so.
I just read another thread in which the CAT and the FS were compared. The poster posited that the CAT had more lower midrange energy, and this is part of the frequency where the "richness" of instruments come through (and of course, the midbass). The FS sounds less rich in the midbass even using an old JVC CD player and they have too MUCH midbass, so there shouldn't ever seem to be a "leanness" in that frequency with the older JVCs. I think the older FS units were actually a bit richer in the upper bass/lower midrange, whereas the newest MK II is perhaps more "transparent." However, that transparency, to my ears, thins out the body of instruments, much as Rackon says. I mean, let's be logical, too: no component is perfect, and this just happens to be where the FS deviates from neutrality. Not a problem, per se, but it doesn't sound as dimensional as my older FS unit did.

Here's the thread, by a First Sound Presence Deluxe MK. II with 4.0 power supply ( a step up from mine). Notice he notices the lack of "sweetness" in the First Sound also.

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1088683556&read&keyw&zzfirst+sound

And here I come again to address Drubin's curiosity about my "preamp of choice." I don't really have one at this point. And I still own my First Sound; it's just that occasional glare bothers me more then it once did. I think some of that is that I once thought it was the amp or equipment stand, until I replaced the stands to Neuance platforms, Zoethecus and even Ikea Lack tables (the Billy Baggs racks ring something fierce! I find it hard to believe that the Absolute Sound recommended them: they must have cotton in their ears, seriously! All you have to do is tap the top of the stand and it'll ring).
Some of the things I notice about the First Sound are recent.
Some of the rest of the system: Accuphase amp, Hurricanes, and about 10 speaker systems including the Genesis 6.1s for two months. Other components include Nordost Valhalla interconnect/speaker cable; Shunyata speaker cable/interconnects; Transparent speaker cable/interconnects (and each company's respective power cords, including the Valhalla power cords, Transparents top of the line power cord, and Shunyatas Pythons). Several different front ends: JVC 1010 and 1050 and 1010 modified, Sony DVP 9000ES and Philips SACD 1000 as well as an Arcam FMJ 23 (never, ever glaring up top!). Turntables, too....
I'd love to know why brass glares on the system, but haven't found an answer. Changed plug polarity and everything.
I think the link I included where the poster, who owns both the CAT and the FS, and said the FS never sounds "sweet" is on the mark. It's a very "clear" component, but it seems, in the most recent incarnations, to have lost some of the sweetness it might have had. My linestage was an older one, and it was definitely "sweeter" than the Presence Deluxe Mk. II I now have. I think in eliminating some of the "electronic sound" that Emmanuel dislikes, he may have done away with some of the "tenderness" that music displays. Just my observations, of course.