Don Garber's Fi Two Box Preamplifier

Don Garber Fi Two Box tube preamplifier

The rarest of the rare.

This is the renowned 2 box Fi preamplifier. The preamp controls are in one chassis and the power supply is in the other chassis.

I am the original owner. I read Art Dudley’s review in The Listener and knew I had to have this preamp. 

Since amount of time and labor needed to craft this preamp was so extensive, Don Garber only made a small handful of these.

 I wanted dual volume controls, and Don figured out how to accommodate my request- the two volume controls are not the top and the selector switch (a precision Swiss made jewel) is on the front. He designed and built the preamp with a volume control for each channel. The preamp is all original as crafted by Don.

Don Garber’s Fi preamplifier most striking feature, to me, in addition to it’s aesthetic design, is the utter lack of listener fatigue. The preamp is so natural that you can listen hour after hour with simply no listener fatigue. The music just flows and flows with naturalness. You can listen without the usual fatigue-your brain doesn’t have to struggle to separate the music from the noise/distortion. None of the usual sonic descriptions are necessary- you don’t need to parse terms like dynamics, dimensionality, neutrality, etc. The preamp is about soul and soulfulness. It connects you to the soul of the music and to Don Garber’s vision as an aesthetic and musical artist.

My other comparison is between analog and digital. The Fi preamplifier is in the spirit of analog, not digital. It has a phono input and you will find yourself gravitating to the phono input as much or more than to the line inputs. The Fi is the LP of preamps- akin to the Mercury Living Presence or RCA Living Stereo LP’s.

Don Garber is not a fan of tube rolling. I tried some tube rolling and found no difference between Don’s 6922’s and diamond Telefunkens, Mullard, Amperex, JAN’s, etc.The preamp comes with all of Don’r original tubes. It is Don's circuit that matters.

Although, given what it is and it’s rarity, it is clearly a collectors piece, it is best if it is just used and enjoyed by a music lover who wants to get the equipment out of the way. The Fi preamp gets the equipment out of the way- you engage with the music, not the electronics.

When Art Dudley reviewed the Fi preamplifier, he said: “I wrote a rave and a check”. He bought it and, I believe, still owns it. I simply made a call to Don and wrote a check- the best decision I have ever made in my many decades of listening to music. But I did have to wait about a year for Don to craft this preamp. Don custom makes to order. Patience is not one of my virtues- so I just waited and waited, confident I would be thrilled. And I was.

Bubble wrap packing, boxing, shipping, and insurance by the UPS store. Buyer pays shipping costs, insurance, and pay pal fees.