Give me ultimate proof...

"As for GSP Audio, I have a nagging feeling it is ready to go heavyweight..."

There is nowhere else left to go.

If you read some of the other forums, public opinion is that everybody else can do just as well. However, in saying that, few have ever experienced our products. The forums tend to seal the fate of all who fail to innovate.

Innovation has to be what it means. It is no good doing anything conventional anymore, and even if you did, the politician always profits by his doctrine.

The end stays the same: the required result is the utmost in customer satisfaction.

Team innovation with customer satisfaction and the right prices in a slowing market, with the knowledge that the customer is getting something hand-built in England, and it may just succeed?

That's what most people who find us expect, and we need to give that to them. So far we have but like I said, the forum mentality is capable of breaking the nerve of our potential new customers.

So, in a way we have to offer "magic spells" on top of what we already do.

However, these innovations, although they may appear as "magic", are in fact good solid engineering innovations grounded in reality.

I am basically building on existing foundations that have supported a growth of near on 40% per annum for some time now.

We have our critics: all say similar things - that I am "old-hat" in some ways, but all admit that this "old-hat" sounds spectacularly good, and some of these comments actually get published. That tells me I am sufficiently unconventional to get noticed, but still well grounded in proper engineering. I quite like being there.

The problem with modern design is that it's boring: always the same - eternal rehashes of the same convention - a bit like going to church every Sunday expecting eternal life...

The great thing about "old-hat" is the innovative spirit it had.

And all these new terms like Damping Factor were invented in some ill-meaning minds to kill that spirit.

Well, it's still alive in me. And that's why we have our differences (though we remain great friends!)

Look back at the innovations in the tube days! Where did they all go? Not one tube amp these days features one - they've all been brought in-line with current thinking!

It's only nostalgia now that makes them novelty - it's the only selling feature they have - people convince their ears that the sound is right even though most valve gear sounds totally alien to people like me who remember how really fluid they actually were.

But if you use "old-hat" innovations of the valve days with solid-state it's remarkable how valve like the results sound - and ain't that what people have been saying about our products all the time?

That's my point and why I sail a different ship on its different course.

The "experts" will always argue what I do can't sound as good as it actually does - their ears cannot convince their eyes - it's they that have the problem. How else can anybody explain that 40% annual growth?

I guess that now I've got this reputation I could start to take the easy option and milk the cash cow, but that would be to betray my customers. So instead I tread the hard road, but the results are what I seek and I seek till I find.

Prove all things. Hold fast that which is good.

dvv wrote: Anyway, I can't wait to see what you have come up with.

Oh, just 4 years research trying to pin-point exactly what European RoHS did to the sound...

Typical - Politicians change the laws of the universe without knowing jack-sh1t about them.

Egged on by the hyper rich green wellie brigade, and their Baldrick minded supporters.

Anybody else would have keeled over and given up the ghost - in fact I should be pushing-up daisies by now...

Let's see: 4 years, mostly spent finding out exactly what went wrong. That's about 80 hours a week. And let's say I should charge out my time at 50 quid a hour?

so 52 x 80 x 50 = £208,000.00

Or quite near half a million dollars!

Not bad for a miners son?

And what's the secret?

Sorry, there's a price to pay for all that research.

How's about a cool million? That's in GBP by the way

Hint of bitterness in my words? Dead right there is!

Oops - posted that without noticing there were another couple of pages of comments...

However, while I'm here...  ;-)

Amcron! Patron saint of SPL!  Gawd bless you sir! Hallowed to the back of the auditorium...

And as for the MP3 kids of today - well, yes, but... one of the biggest growth areas in music is vinyl. And it's not all old buffers - the young guys get it, and some of them are getting turned on to how good the latest turntables are - well, current vinyl replay tech generally - and how damn good it can sound. I have a couple of thousand LPs here, and am doing my own spot of evangelising with certain success.

But the thing is, so many people are mobile, or moving from flat to flat all the time, and that requires portable or mobile solutions. MP3 is a flippin godsend - I can fit my entire CD collection on one shirt pocket drive. We all know it's not up to vinyl. Fine. We just want it to sound the very best it can, nonetheless. Compressed digital audio is here to stay - let's really enjoy it.

I don't stop being aware of the sound when i step away from my home and my vinyl. I want the highest possible quality for home and away. Yes, I'm already impressed enough with my Solo that I'm hoping to buy a voyager for road use. And if you could perfect a small but perfectly formed DAC that could sneak the musical info on the mp3s in my Macbook onto nicer audio rep equipment than that found inside it, well, I'd follow that other chap's lead and experiment with some respectable active speakers to go with the decent headphones. Hifi on the move.

Because wherever i am, it's about the music!