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brent: http://gizmodo.com/theres-an-airbag-hidden-inside-this-lightweight-ski-je-1538074917

This.

The Grand Budapest Hotel Soundtrack

I see the Diabolical Double is open for registrations...hmmm.

Marc drew it up (or had it drawn up, can't remember) back in the day and it's basically the front end off the SRM-007t coupled to a CCS loaded quad of 6S4A's. I modified the boards to turn them into a KGST so just one tube per phase and a simple 10M90 ccs. Works well enough but I'll probably put the boards back on a shelf in favor of the ones I'm designing now. This is a part of larger move to possibly make a limited run of KGST amps. A couple of friends have been asking for a mini Blue Hawaii that would be as slim as is possible for desktop use. The KGST is the most logical circuit for that and it would be fun to do a custom chassis with some over the top PSU design in a separate box. The design is pretty much ready in my head but I simply need to find some time to invest in it and see if any of this can be done locally for me. None of this would be cheap though but that's hardly the point when making something cool...

Ahh yes, the "I've heard it and it was awesome" reply, a true classic. The true refuge of anybody without a single clue what he's talking about. First, any of the Cavalli amps being expensive to make is as ludicrous as the Abyss being worth it's lofty price tag. JPS comes in time and again claims that they needed to tool up to produce it but isn't that the cost of any manufacturing venture? Same with Cavalli, milled stuff from China is dirt cheap and so are punched steel boxes. Nothing else in there worth a whole lot so what is so bloody expensive? The problem with both companies is clear though, excessive markup is the only way for them to recoup the investment. Take Stax as the polar opposite, the SR-009 is expensive but the markup is very low so Stax have to sell a lot of them to make end meets. If we expand on this a bit, RSA makes enough money for Ray to own a Lambo but does Justin own one? Since I'm listening to an ECP L-2 now, that is definitely in the low markup category too. It also dares to be different which is very refreshing. Second, we draw our conclusions from full schematic of the amps not a quick glance at a picture. The circuits are then simulated and finally built. As the number of prototypes has grown it's become quite a burden to keep all of them hence the move to small dynamic amps that are much easier to deal with. Just to show how bad it is, I used my WES just now as a weight to secure a set of speakers in the trunk of my car. Yeah, too many amps. Lastly, this does bring up an issue with HF and the idiots that populate it. Amps are lumped into groups that make no sense and everything is judged based on price because nobody has enough sense to see what's underneath the hood and try to learn what makes them tick. Take the LG as an example, who in their right mind thinks it is a good idea to cram just about any dual triode in a circuit and expect it to perform at all? Anybody with even the least bit of sense can see that tubes have very different specs and no circuit can be even remotely optimized for all of them at once. The L-2 must drive people mad as there is no tube rolling, just this one tube with a gold pin version too. SS amps aren't any better as everything is lumped together with no attempt to see what makes it all work. RWA compared to the GS-X when they have nothing in common etc. Now I'm bored and Kevin wants me to look at some new PCB's...