Surgery but not brain? Less than 10 minutes per hermisphere. Here we see the original board still installed, new boards with pre-fitted opamps in front. The included instruction sheet was to the point and perfectly helpful.

Here's one patient during procedure now without a brain. Removal meant two hex bolts, five push-on connectors and one multi-pin header.

In went the newer faster smarter brain, then align and push, snap, snap, snap and screw screw.

Presto, upgraded hardware the old-fashioned manual way. Who needs fancy firmware downloads when things are this easy?

The new brain even looked smarter. Checking on Smokey the Bear before putting the lids back on, he thankfully stayed in hibernation. All these now required was some break-in time. Whilst they were at that, a Nordic news flash broke down with the earlier Hypex price fixing. "Until recently the Hypex NC1200 was available only to a few manufactures with amplifiers costing upwards of £10'000. We had access to the same module but with a minimum pricing policy of £6'500 decided it was too expensive for a boutique manufacturer like us. A recent change in policy means that we're now free to price as we see fit. Without the expensive infrastructure of distributors, dealers, reps, advertising, shows and other expenses, we can bring you this exalted amplifier at £3'795 in stereo or £3'995/pr in mono." This shift might upset makers of NC1200 amps in fancy threads who'd been protected by the earlier Hypex price fixing. It should delight the cheaper skaters who became hip to Ncore 1200 precisely because it was priced very high for class D to signal equality with class A and A/B amps from the big names. Were Hypex readying a new flagship circuit to move NC1200 down a peg? Actually, "Hypex and I separated amicably a while ago so they're not involved with any of the new work. Measured and sonically, the Eigentakt circuit is quite a step up in performance from Ncore and indeed we're looking to establish it as the new high-end standard." That came from Bruno Putzeys and new Danish house Purifi with its "three entities, one that does fundamental research into both loudspeaker driver units and amplifiers, then two subsidiaries to commercialize drivers and amps respectively."