Devil's dump! Is that holy crap to the next power? I looked out the window. My slight FedEx man was plainly struggling with something big out of his van and up our two flights of outdoor stairs. Freestylin' it, he barely made it up to our landing. DHL's petit Portuguese gal wouldn't have stood a chance in hell. He just managed. Professional soldier that he is—and knowing full well how we live on the top floor—he gallantly offered to complete the job when I met him at the door. The red colour of his face and him bent over the box catching his breath rather suggested against it. I waved him off. I had my furniture dolly at the ready. Even our elevator door proved just about wide enough to move the box in nose first rather than by the narrow end. My kinda day! This being the baby of the Point.8 line, manhandling the fully grown specimens clearly requires two. Pass Labs shipping wisely added a pair of open handholds per side even for the 30.8 double box. I think its creator himself may no longer be equal to the task of shlepping anything beyond it.*

Just to be sure that my own oats hadn't deserted me, I looked at the shipping docs. There it was in official black and blue... er, white. 106lb. Steaming shyte of Satan! Grabbing one of the rear handles and its opposing front corner, I hobbled the beast over to its final resting place between the speakers. I wrote this in the amused observer's tense. But make no mistake, this is very serious and seriously heavy hardware! Reading about it is one thing. Pressing its flesh is quite another. If you buy one, make proper arrangements and insure that your rack, shelf or whatever is made of the right stuff and wide enough to accommodate this herniating hulkster.

Removing the ten properly torqued Torx screws to pop the bonnet showed the main weight culprit to be a very stout Avel Lindberg power toroid mounted behind the face plate. Banks of twenty Mosfets per side—in a 10+10 push/pull array—looked just as macho. Good grief. Committed to 30 paper watts per channel, those critters really had to be loafing it like a road crew where two work and eight watch. Macho resurfaced with the 24 x 50V power supply caps and a total of 8 trim pots per channel to calibrate DC offset and other variables.

Here is a closer view on the input stage and bias regulator board with eight more transistors plus eight regulators. This board obscures most of the power supply beneath it. Witness the stout speaker terminals which tighten with a very reassuring click; and those handles which might produce a less reassuring click in your back if you don't watch it.

Hooking up with the power supply beneath the front-end/bias board means unhooking four ribbon cables for a better look-see. Here we get a glimpse of the 12 power supply caps per side, a small Tamura transformer or choke from Temecula/CA, two additional caps hanging sloth-like off the top board and assorted heat-sinked regulators.