Let me change the subject here. I received my RWAK120-S back from Vinnie today. Sounds pretty awesome out of the gate and after listening to 3 or 4 of my favorite tracks I'm hearing knock your socks off improvement. But I'm not going to review it until it has a few days to burn in. I found that there were fairly dramatic changes in the stock AK120 after a couple of days, so I'll let the mod settle down a bit.
I will say that I couldn't be more impressed with the service Vinnie gave. I called him several times to discuss the mod before I made my decision and he was quite generous with his time and knowledge. Once I decided to move ahead, I asked him if he could do the mod fairly rapidly. He promised to turn it around in a week. He received my unit on Tuesday, and when I called him Thursday to check in, he had completed the mod just two days later.
For me, the decision hinged on 3 factors: (1) Was there enough added value to the mod to justify spending precious dollars on this as opposed to other possible changes/upgrades in my setup? (2) Was the "brick" size of the AK120 plus an amp going to be tolerable to me relative to excellent portability of the stock AK120. (3) Was I going to have to give up my unit for several weeks or could I get it done in a week or so.
These are highly individualized factors that I imagine will vary widely among those with an AK120
On all 3 fronts I, personally, am very satisfied so far.
More to follow about sonics in a few days.