Well George, you've done it again .... you planted a seed that started yet another wave of discussion out here on Phoenix!
And to think I just come here for the bad jokes and pin-up girl pictures!
I opened the covers on the 400-II I built two years ago, my first foray into this WOPL World, as I had to see for myself IF replacing a few feet of wire and potentiometers between the RCA jacks and the control board REALLY with a few inches of RG316 makes any difference. Keep in mind I am not the guy who claims his car is faster after a wash&wax detailing, as we all know that's a psychological thing.
*BUT*
This shit is true! I can see Perry's "HOGWASH" in the next post, so I'm prepared!
Seriously, the clarity, channel separation and definition is eye-opening. When I first turned the system on and played a song that I have considered one that gives good instrument definition and spatial imaging, I was intrigued. Several other tracks later and I'm just blown away at the difference that simple mod made. I will build any future WOPLs and well, I will have to dig into the recently commissioned Dual 500 as I'm sure it will also benefit from this modification.
There is one aspect of this upgrade I was not able to carry out - calibrating the original Cylon meters per the instruction in the 400-II service manual. That calls for feeding a 60Hz signal and measuring 40V RMS at the outputs to set the 0db point on the meters. Speaker protection pukes all over this and I get no output. Tried 1kHz and same thing. Is there a procedure that I am missing for this calibration? Thanks.