General Q. What does 47 Lab's "47" mean? A. Junji's last name is Kimura. "Ki" means yellow and "Mura" (murasaki) means purple in Japanese. Now, on the colour code on resistors, yellow is number 4 and purple is number 7. Hence, Kimura is 47.

4706 Gaincard Q. What type of connector do the speaker terminals accept? A. They accept most of spade plugs and bare wires unless they are extremely thick, fat, or both. Q. What kind of improvement do we get by adding an extra power supply? A. By adding another power supply, you make it into a complete mono structure. It also adds more power (does not double though) and current capacity. The result is an airier, deeper soundstage and more authotity through the entire frequency range. Q. Is there any difference in sound between 25W and 50W version? A. There is a slight difference. 50W version has more punch and control over the lower freqency, while 25W sounds a bit more natural in comparison. Q. What kind of speaker do you recommend? A. 25W Gaincard can drive any speaker sufficiently as long as the impedance stays over 4 ohms. If it drops below 4 ohms at any frequency range, you'll be safer with the 50W version. Speaker choice can be very personal and we are afraid to make any definite recommendations. Customers are using quite a variety of speakers with Gaincard; from Audio Physic, ProAc, Wilson, etc., to Lowthers and Avantgarde. You can always contact SAKURA SYSTEMS with the details of your system, room, and the type of music you mainly listen to so that we can make some suggestions that may help to narrow your choices.

4707 Input Chooser Q. Is Input Chooser a preamp? A. No, it is a selector box with 4 inputs and two outputs. It doesn't have any preamp circuit.

4708 OTA Cable Kit Q. Can we use OTA kit with other brands' components or is it strictly for 47 Lab components? A. You can use the cable kit with any other components as long as they have RCA terminals, or , in case of speakers, accept bare wires. Q. Why does the extra plug cost so much ($25 for one) for what seems to be a simple plastic piece. A. Those plugs are machined out from soft Delrin plastic. Machining soft plastic to a very specific size and shape is a hectic process and quite costly. Q. Doesn't the exposed wire oxidate after some time? A. It does. We suggest to clean it with a contact cleaner every once in a while.

4713 Flatfish Q. Since its lens assembly is exposed in the air, isn't it affected by dusts? A. I (Yoshi) had them in my living room with kids and a dog for three years. Never used a cover or dusted it, so it was covered with dust and dog hairs, but didn't have any problem. Q. What kind of shelf and/or platform do you recommend for Flatfish? A. Any platform with flat surface will do. Junji Kimura has been using a marble platform of about 1" thickness. We found  Neuance Audio Platforms  and  Symposium Sveltshelf  work very well with Flatfish.