I think people ask too many mod on top the original design, and given too little time for Mikhail himself. did I say too little time? What was I thinking.........

Is it just me or does the presence of orange drop caps in a amp built with nothing but the best seem out of place ?

Peete.

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Yep, I had no intention to open it up because of the high voltages. Not touching that stuff

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Thanks, I did that for all of us.

I wish Mikhail stay in headamp business.

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Whats wrong with Orange Drops? They're preferred by guitar amplifier builders. They're considered a great substitute when you need to perform a cap change on an amp.

Nothing is wrong with orange drops but in an amp that is stuffed with the best parts money can buy, in that context, it strikes me as slightly odd....

Peete.

Is it just me being stubborn or could alot of the wires be shorter if they were routed properly? Im not talking right angles but it seems like they have added length because they are criss crossed and layered every which way.

Just coming from a noob, but it seems like a lot of the mess comes from no real "plan of attack" that was though out prior to putting things together.

I work in design, so I know a lot of times things can't be aesthetically pleasing and still work right and/or be efficiently built, but it seems like an hour or two of planning out wire runs and the like would really do a lot to clean things up. Now, granted, it might be that's been taken care of and those pictures represent the cleanest way to do that, but to me it just seems like a lack of foresight.

I'd imagine the guts of that amp are going to be pretty toasty after it's been running for a bit, too.

Not that it really matters, but were it me building $10,000 - $30,000 amps, I'd be a bit embarrassed for something that expensive to come out of my shop looking like that.

Thanks to everyone for your opinions.

Mikhail has agreed to bring the Supra-XLR and ES-1 to the Colorado Meet on July 26. Hopefully the meet participants can listen to the amps and let us know how they sound.

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The thing is it might not have been bad planning at all, not until we see pictures of that same amp when it was first put together. You have to remember that this amp was owned by someone else before and they did upgrades as well, and now Elephas is getting it upgraded again (nothing wrong with that! ). The case seems to be too small for that many upgraded components so unless you asked him to put everything in a new/bigger case (which would be like building another amp entirely) then its probably going to look like a mess. I have a Supra XLR that I want to upgrade down the line but I'm afraid, not because it might look messy because I wouldn't really care about that as long as it was done correctly, but because I might not see my amp again for 1 year+

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Still, someone who had the darkvoice 337, preferred another headphone amp using pcb.

Hardwiring is not per se better sounding. I heard some hardwired amps and pcb amps and high end pcb amps sound as good or better then hardwired amps. I don't see the fuss.

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What are you guys talking about wiring. All caps, resistors and any other electronic component has way more impact on sound then any piece of wire!

As for the components, all high end! All good stuff in there.

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I'm saying it because most folks don't even know what you are talking about when you say "allow the caps to discharge" and knowing how found Mikhail is of large (capacitance) power supply capacitors it may take a while for them to discharge - and that's assuming that there are bleeder resistors. I personally haven't looked at enough of his amps to know how Mikhail addresses this. Since there are several unknown factors like this it would seem to me that the prudent advice would be to at least caution people about the danger that these types of amps (not just Mikhial's, any high-voltage tube amp) can and do represent. I don't know about you but I've been thumped by a 300V B+ before and it's not something that I wish anyone else to experience. My heart survived it, someone else's might not.

So my advice is the same, if you don't know what you're doing please be careful. If you insist on opening it up make sure that the amp has been unplugged for a matter of hours (not minutes) and once the chassis cover is off keep one hand in your pocket (so you cannot become the path to ground).

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Based on where the appear to be in the case, I am fairly sure they are part of the power supply. Part of the voltage regulators to be specific.

Mikhail has built amps with upgraded caps in this spot, but I would SERIOUSLY question their necessity.