Hi guys, the year began a bit rough for me, with the loss of my beloved dog of 12-1/2 years, followed by a nasty bout of influenza that ran through our house and family quickly. Both of these pretty much took me out of circulation for a couple of weeks, after CES.
Moving forward!
We are still offering mods for the Sony XA-5400ES and now of course offer our own 'Truth' umbilical, of our own design, as an upgrade option for the Sony XA-5400ES mods as well as ANY of our other tube mods!
We are still offering mods for the Oppo BDP-83 and 83SE models. We are NOT planning to offer mods for the BDP-93, but we ARE planning mods for the BDP-95 and I expect to have a unit here to experiment with very soon! I have both a SS and tube option in mind for this that are both more sophisticated than what we have previously offered for the BDP-83/83SE. Both of the options I have in mind will really focus strictly on 2CH playback.
Digital Input Mod: The design is complete, but we are waiting on PCB's and a custom part that is still about 3-4 weeks out. As a result, I don't expect to have this mod completed before mid March. It will be offered in two forms. One option, that WILL work for the Sony XA-5400ES and likely other CD only (non-video players) will act BOTH as Master clock AND digital input board, with < 20 ps Jitter! The other option will include the same digital input module with the same < 20 ps jitter levels, but this will ONLY effect the units use as a DAC, and will not improve the jitter performance of the unit as a standalone player, because the proprietary clock circuit on the digitial input board is of a different frequency than the CD/DVD/Blue Ray master clocks.
Following this will be our own DAC design that we will first offer for the LS 100 as an upgrde, ideally by Spring 2011.
Following this, we will also offer a standalone DAC based on the same circuitry and with tube output stage. Inputs will be SPDIF and USB (24/192), at a minimum.
MWI product-wise, the LS 100 and KWA 100SE continue to sell VERY well and will go on tour as soon as we get caught up a bit more on our backorders!
The new KWA 150 'Signature Edition' will be released by the end of this month and will take the sound of our award winning KWA 150 amp to a much higher level. Changes in current storage via capacitor bank design, changes in the Lundahl input transformer and subsequent design changes to the input circuitry as well as fully-cryo'd premium signal wiring for both input and output stages all complete the upgrade. Price is approximately 20% higher than stock 2011 price of our KWA 150. Please ask your dealer for pricing and availability.
The Phono stage for our LS 100 is now shipping and has evolved slightly since the first couple of units were sold - which have also been updated. It is quieter and more musical than our previous SWP 9.0SE design and is less than 1/4 the cost, when added to the LS 100 as an upgrade. I am looking into a standlone phono stage (2-box design), based on this same basic circuit, ideally in the < $3K range.
We have other products in the works also, that are still too distant to even discuss. Suffice to say that we are staying busy.
Thanks for taking time to read this. I just wanted you all to know why I have been 'off the grid' for the past few weeks.
Take care,
Dan W.
