It's been over a month since I posted. Since then, several changes were made. Most significant is a very long spell of withdrawal fever caused by the amp being out of the system for some work and upgrades. I knew I should have kept the old amps as back-ups! The amp was returned to Cy Brenneman for repair of an intermittent short caused during shipping. Even though I am not the original owner of the amp, Cy is repairing it at no charge under warranty. Also, the Noble volume pot on the Cavalier Plus is being upgraded to a 24 position Goldpoint stepped attenuator with 0.1% tolerance smd resistors. I have reservations about having only 24 steps... But a volume control is a necessary evil and the low noise resistors should in theory be a significant upgrade in performance from the carbon film Noble pot. The short circuit happened the same day my Bidat returned from John Wright, after it was "lost" for 3 months in Canada Customs!!! I ordered John's usual upgrades, plus other non-standard mods I requested. John was pleased with the results from these changes, and he said he may offer them as part of his standard upgrades for the public.
The big screen Pioneer Elite RPTV that was positioned between the main speakers is gone, sold on Craig's List. I moved the almost-as-large Edgarhorn sub from the right side wall to the middle of the front wall where the TV was located. It is a common myth that sub-woofers are omni directional. This is absolutely false. I tested mine with a 24dB/oct 4th order network crossovered at 80Hz. It is still (slightly) audible above 200Hz!!! It is definitely directional. I want the new sub position to address any balance issues.
Since the system is down, I also had the digital interconnect reterminated from SPIDF to AES/EBU. I don't need the additional gain or noise rejection. Mostly, I just want a more secure physical connection because Dominus is so heavy and a pain to manage. If Dominus didn't work so darn well, I would wonder why anyone would put up with it.
I'm finally getting around to modifying the EAR 834P. I decided to do this myself, in 3 phases, to gauge the efficacy of each upgrade. Phase 1 will be upgrading the power supply (storage capacity and diodes), phase 2 will upgrade caps and resistors in the signal path, and phase 3 is direct coupling the circuit per Thorsten's mods. Phase 1 and 2 parts are ordered.
I'm also taking time to buy more music. I added more Kyung Wha Chung, Ashkenazy, Julie London, John Lee Hooker, Bobby Darin, Gene Ammons and Albert King to my LP collection.
Finally, I'm leaving next week, travelling abroad for 3 weeks to Thailand, Cambodia and Viet Nam. Looking forward to a great vacation, but also already looking forward to putting my system together when I return and listening to music.
scott