[prepress]

Fantasy has struck again. The idea has come to explore an upgrade to my Transparent Plus ICs on the main sources to Super. So I contacted Transparent, and utilizing the Upgrade program would get a decent trade-in. This would be for the Gen 6 Super (which I didn't know they had; I thought it was only the upper tier stuff that was Gen 6).

Transparent thinks a better upgrade would be to do the speaker cable, whether Plus or Super. The retail price for a bi-wire pair of Plus speaker cable would be less than the IC upgrade, but at 8 ft. is way too long, as speakers and amps are right next to each other. An old e-mail I found says 6 ft. is the shortest they can make. Bi-wire adds $175 to the price. But if bi-wire, won't that reduce the effective gauge for each lug? Plus is 10AWG; i don't know about Super. My Kimber 12TC is 8AWG, and I use two pair to keep the effective gauge high. Transparent, however, doesn't recommend that. I should ask why.

It gets worse. I contacted Magnum Dynalab about the MD107T and a possible trade-in of my 102. The tuner doesn't see much duty, so this makes no sense from a practical perspective. But the 107 has a McIntosh-esque look to it, which is cool. It uses JJ tubes, which I used in my 2300 before the Black Diamonds I use now.

I CANNOT afford all three of these moves; at best, I could do one. The cheapest would be the speaker cables. AARGH. Here's hoping it all blows over.