Hi guys, the 'Turbo' mod will not be terribly expensive and WILL be available to existing units. It will add to the existing mod price of course and this upcharge will be somewhat less than the cost to upgrade after the fact. I ALWAYS aim to make all of our products future proof and this is no exception.
A bit of 'Turbo' history:As some of you know, the analog stage in the Transporter borrows from the LS 36.5 preamp technology but is also different in many ways. Due to space constraints, we could not include a choke and I also had to simplify the power supply. I had initially thought about doing an outboard power supply, but since there WAS room inside the unit, I decided to start there. Add to this, the fact that the whole concept of this unit and computer-server based systems, is convenience, it didn't make sense to add another box, cable, etc., if not necessary.
Well, while it took a while to design the initial mod. When I reached the sound that I was after, I found that the power supply being internal was NOT a detriment and added no unwanted noise, etc., as expected initially. The mod has obviously been a good success for us and people have found it to better MANY DAC and CDP solutions in the >$10K range.
I had been asked about upgrading clocks, DACs, etc. in the unit, but I still firmly believe that the digital portions of the Transporter are already well thought out and designed and the AKM DAC chip is exceptional.
I knew that the analog stage was very clean and strong, but the power supply still had room for improvement.
Once again, tech borrowed from the LS 36.5 AND PS 36.5 this time:I found that a dual-mono outboard power supply for the LS 36.5 with dual discrete voltage regulation made a HUGE improvement over the stock LS 36.5 in terms of weight, body, low level cues, bass response, soundstage, etc. Well, first of all, relax, the turbo mod does not involve a 48lb. dual-mono external power supply
. In fact, the solution is much more elegant for the Transporter.
Thanks again to Alan Kimmel, a solid-state circuit was suggested, to achieve the same end-goal of the all-tube dual-discrete voltage regulation stages used in the PS 36.5. FETs are a lot easier to work with than tubes in this case and take up a lot less space. I did some testing and found that indeed a solid-state version of this same voltage regulation stage gave MUCH of the performance of the PS 36.5 without the extra cost, space and of course tubes.
So, basically, the 'Turbo' upgrade for the Transporter consists of a 'supercharger' for the power supply if you will. We add a superior dual-discrete solid-state voltage regulation stage to the stock analog supply and the Transporter is raised to another level entirely.
I don't mean to be coy here, but I have several customers who are going to be my beta testers and I will let them give their impressions of the upgrade and THEN I will share my opinions. I will simply say, listening to an upgraded unit as I write this, that you haven't heard the Transporter's full potential yet!
Thanks,
Dan W.
