Music First Audio Passive Magnetic Preamplifiers?

George, you have been working on this for a few decades, any ideas cooking on how to make the Lightspeed better yet, or is there nowhere to go at this point? Isn't your idea patentable?

Reading through the DIY.com thread I believe he tried to patent or had a patent. However, it's perfectly clear he was the first to come up with this design since copied by others including Melos and Datzeel.

DIY is no threat, since that community is going to reverse engineer this stuff anyway, for electonic dopes like me, I am more than happy to pay George, have him make a profit on what is simply an amazing sounding piece of gear, and a SOTA, single input preamplifier that can compete with any preamplifier in the world with careful system matching between source, pre, cables, and amp. Not for everyone, but in the right system about as good as it gets IMHO.

Sorry George, didn't realize it was a multi-input remote controlled copy of your preamp. I think many would consider buying a multi-input remote controlled version of your Lightspeed preamp. I understand your preamp was "advertized" to the DIY crowd who tend to spend less on audio gear than the typical audiophile. John at Bent Audio had a pretty successful run of his remote controlled multi-input/output TVC/AVC preamp, and he was charging $1600 to $3000.

I first did the Lightspeed Attenuator back in 1975 but the LDR's were horrendous to keep calibrated I thought about patenting it but with zero reliability what was the use, it still sounded to everyone as the most transparent/dynamic pre they ever heard. I shelved the idea till I hoped LDR's became more reliable.
Melos then tried it in the 90's their kilo's $$$buck SHA-Gold reference all these failed also probably what sent them broke. Also Haffler had a stab at it around the same time. And now Dartzeel don't get me started on that one.
It wasn't till the early 2000's that I finally found reliable LDR's that would stay matched. This is the story why now I cannot patent the idea I should have done it back in 1975. But I can stop others from trying to patent it for them selves.
As for making it sound better, simply, no, what I make is a good as it gets, extra inputs sound worse because of the switching, remotes do nothing for the sound, my philosophy with it is KISS and keep it affordable.I have even run it off pure battery power, we say there is a very slight difference but no one can tell what the difference is, even golden ears Sam Tellig