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Jude announced it over at HF: http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/556674/start-making-your-plans-for-2011-canjam-rmaf-rocky-mountain-audio-fest So anyone going to make it? Headphones + speakers + free beer!!! What else do you need?

Harsh once, sure, but this has been overboard.

Oh, thanks Eric! I knew this website, but it's one of those you know about but never remember to check. Thanks, I've already found some good stuff!

Got the new table/arm hooked up. Sound is a little slower than the VPI, but the presentation is nicer and more inner detail going on. Its much more layered from front to back than it was. Keeper for awhile at least (table) i think the arm is a work of art and sound and will be on any table i buy in the future. Sorry about the photos. I'll have my wife add better shots tomorrow.

Hiked to the top of Utah's La Sal Mountains, Mount Peale, 12,721 '. In fact, I'm posting from the summit right now!

It's truly astounding just what little people understand even about the very basics. Larry is comparing based on memory with no regard taken as to the specs of the source, gain of the amp and judging how powerful an amp is based on how loud it plays. I'm sure most will see just how stupid this is. While we do use voltage swing as some arbitrary benchmark for amps it is all but worthless in reality. It says nothing about what's going on in the amp at these voltages (i.e. how it handles the load), it's just the rail voltages (or single rail where that applies like the GES/WES plus many others) minus the natural losses that incur. If this was the sole benchmark then the KGSSHV would rule them all with the +/-500V rails or roughly 1900VP-P. It does but there is much more to it then just that. One of the roots of the KGSSHV design came from an email Kevin sent me some years ago listing transistors he found that would allow the normal KGSS to run at much higher voltages, certainly +/-450V if not higher. That led to a discussion of what is really needed to drive these transducers and the demanding load they present. The main "selling point" of the KGSSHV is that it fixes how the third stage is handled (adds a CCS where the old one uses resistors) which was the main weakness of the old design. The new PSU is also a very worthwhile addition but the extra voltage swing isn't really needed IMO. It does certainly no harm and it moves the normal listening range even further from the limits of the amp. The gain is still the same so to make this amp clip you have to feed it a lot of voltage and say goodbye to any headphones connected to it since they won't survive these voltages. Years ago Kevin asked me what I wanted to see in new designs and my reply was something like this: "More voltage would be nice but above all else we need more power" More power brings better load tolerance so the amp is less of a factor. This is the same direction Stax have been going in for the last 40 years. The SS amps they had 37 years ago used a single rail voltage with resistors for the load and output caps. In 1982 the SRM-1 Mk2 arrives with dual HV rails so it could be fully DC coupled but the resistors are still there. Later they are also replaced and the latest amps all feature improvements to the other stages, same as the KGSSHV. Indeed. Your sig is very fitting now...