Soundsmith - Thank you to everyone.

Mind fresh as a daisy, its plain to see.

No, w the Straingauge, Peter is going for the straight resolution angle. Because w resolution comes natural warmth, lifelike speed, dynamic contrast, tonal density and differentiation, and timbral accuracy.

That's what I gleaned from Uwe's review. That's what I thought was supposed to be the goal of all our gear- to reveal. Not to be warm, or cold, or any particular way at all. To not even be there. That at least to me is the ideal. Which is why its in my system description. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367  

Of course we never truly get there. We fall short, always. But that's the aim. Then yes a lot of records, even some treasures, will be revealed to be less than perfect. Oh well the recording engineers have all the same problems. Some do better than others. Even if they do a really good job it can still be screwed up later- look how many crap pressings there are! But that still leaves the magic. Here and there. Which when you do come across it, always seems to me, the less your system imposes the more of the magic you get. 

So yeah my impression is the Strain Gauge is the bomb. Figures. Like everything else. Whenever I narrow it down to the best, its nowhere to be found. By which I mean no way to audition. You just have to take a pass.... or bite the bullet.  

Wish I could say the poetry surprises me, but not from Peter. Not after hearing his a record is a beautiful woman metaphor.

Oh and I found the SG thread over at whatsbestforum.com and found a surprise in there from Peter. See, over in the Soundsmith having issues thread, a discussion inexplicably now closed, I had said the Strain Gauge has the look of a purpose made scientific instrument. So what a pleasant surprise to read Peter in the other thread saying there are two camps, the musical instrument camp and the scientific instrument camp, and his SG is the first to be mostly in the scientific instrument camp.

To you Peter I will say how your work reminds me of a story told among Porsche owners. It is said the German people have a word for when functional engineering is elevated to such a sublime level it merges with and becomes art. I don’t know the word. Don’t even know if the story is true. But it would be nice if it is. We would know what to call what you do.

Pretty good, Peter. Reminds me of my favorite poem, Wordsworth's Daffodils  

I wandered lonely as a cloud  
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,  
When all at once I saw a crowd,  
A host, of golden daffodils;  
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,  
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.    
 
Continuous as the stars that shine  
And twinkle on the milky way,  
They stretched in never-ending line  
Along the margin of a bay:  
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,  
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.     
 
The waves beside them danced; but they  
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:  
A poet could not but be gay,  
In such a jocund company:  
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought  
What wealth the show to me had brought:  
 
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.