I am back, folks. My system was the third most talked about system after Mike Levine's and Albert Porter's.

For some personal reasons I took a break from audio. But I am back with good news and not so thrilling news. The not so thrilling news is that the system is unchanged. And the good news is that it is so hard to improve it, regardless of the price -- I do not know what to upgrade, except may be cables -- as I hit the peak performance from my perspective. The sound thrills me still every time I listen. Still, 140plus tubes, embedded in the finest of amps and pre-amp driving a legendary speaker that can give a good run for money to speakers costing $100k plus, all making heat and magic at the same time. Wow, life is good.

Acknowledgements:

There are several people I wish to acknowledge who have helped me a great deal in building this system:

1. Charlie, who designed one of the finest preamps. Although, TRL Dude is marginally better, the Charlie X-2 will stay with me for ever and will continue to provide listening pleasures

2, Paul Weitzel of Tube Research Labs (TRL) for his helping on tuning the amps and on his feedback on many other technical aspects of the system at the micro and macro level.

3. David Royalty for building nice wooden battery casing for the TRL moded Sony CD player and also for numerous technical feedbacks.

4. Ivan Li of Hong Kong for showing me the insight into planar speaker placement.

5. Steve Dobbins of Xact audio for coming all the way from Idaho to install the tonearm and overall turntable tune up.

6. many visitors who have graced my listening room with their presence.

7. All audio friends who are not mentioned above.

8. Audiogoners who continue to post interesting and thought provoking comments here.