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We do know the entire amp topology and those relays are to switch signals, nothing else. You can accuse me of hating Chinese products but yet I buy everything I can from China to test out... weird that... I have every electrostatic amp or headphones I can get from China. It can't be that you are just a retarded Topping fanboy, is it? Have you tried this thing or even measured it? I just wonder what anybody at Topping was thinking about when designing this thing, how was a roughly 1W+1W amp supposed to drive electrostatics? I mean they could have put in a simple Class D unit (while not ideal) with far more power and get a better result. You only need to understand the basics with regards to electrostatics to know you just need more power for them to behave. Now that is far more interesting though I'll have to call into question any specs they publish... or even think they can reach. The parts are available to make a fully discrete amp with excellent specs, hell it is possible to make it all SMD if you can figure out the heatsinking issues. Also reading ASR's evaluation of R2R dacs just hurts my brain. There is so much stupidity there it is simply painful...

Wrapped up the tea box. Used the Shaper for joints/hinge/mortises/tea cup. Quartersawn Oak, Sapele and Bubinga.

Thanks everyone for the well wishes!

Got outside with the Light Lens Lab 50mm f/2 “Cooke” Speed Panchro II. For those not in the know LLL is doing historical recreations of long out of production classic lenses, a Cooke design this time, but usually Leica. It seems to be a split lens personality. Glow and vintage f/2-2.4, sharper and more modern very quickly as you climb. Distance plays a big role. Anyway, honeymoon stage and these are just short walks in Woodside and Alviso, CA this weekend to test, but as we have M-mount shooters posting a few to show rendering. Tempted to picked up their 50mm f/2 “Elcan”, now discontinued and prices climbing weekly, to give a go as original completely out of reach.

I like the effect on images 2 and 3 the most.

Idle Moments Grant Green 1965 https://album.link/i/724724533 Example: Frikin' Blue Note. How were you so consistently good at making recordings? Just a wonderful recording capturing the magic of Grant Green. You know, the usual.

Just finished watching all three series of Happy Valley on catchup. Stunning script and stunning acting. Award winning. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3428912/

Time to pivot to being an "influencer" full-time, Jeff?

"Amazing, amazing stuff!" Nice I did like his Irish pronunciation of your last name too! Or was it Scottish?

I am YouTube minimally-famous.

That doesn't make any sense, why would protection on the low voltage side matter? How can the low voltage side know of a short or anything like that on the other side of the transformer short of a basic overload? There is nothing that connects the two, except the transformer. There are no large relays on the amplifier side to turn off the output in the event of something bad happening so I very much doubt there is any protection at all. Certainly not on the main, large PCB. Another factor are the large impedance swings of electrostatics which will mimic a dead short at times. The build quality is terrible, it's better than the Monoprice or Drop Cavalli units but yeah, these will not last for long. The main thing though is this sounds absolutely horrid. I had a SRM-1 Mk2 and a SRM-252S I needed to test yesterday so I connected them all together to the same source and matched the output voltage of them. The difference in sound quality is rather stark, even driving a set of SR-207's (so very light load) the Stax units walk all over it. The EHA-5 sounds just like the squarewave, it is under immense strain so very bright and broken sound.

ASR is the Scientology of audio... it has Science in the name but that's about it. For me it is just the polar opposite of SBAF, same drivel though and makes Head-fi look good.

Happy listening! Cheers!

After finishing The Night Agent ( which we both enjoyed ) we segued into The Diplomat which we have now just finished. Plenty to enjoy, aided by "Location Porn" and "Opulent Interiors" ( it is set in the UK) . Two prime examples being the new Embassy of the United States, London, and The Ambassador's Residence, Winfield House, which although they correctly describe as being situated in Regents Park, and having "The second-largest private garden in London after that of Buckingham Palace.", The Skyline you see in the wide exterior shorts, while of London, is not one you would see from Regents park. A bit of sleuthing (they didn't reveal all the filming locations in press releases ) revealed it to be Wrotham Park . I'll let them off. Full marks for that ending I'll let @Sherwood neither confirm or deny the accuracy of having to manage politicians with their own agenda.