Half full; or empty depending on your life philosophy. Pop the DAM-1's bonnet and the compact casing could have been half as deep and still contained the goods.

The PA1 with its twinned Maxwell 310F 2.7VDC 0.31Wh super caps isn't much different. Aside from the obvious, two voltage regulators mount to its bottom plate so partially obscure by the brown 16v 39'000µFJianghai capacitor. Beneath the black Perspex roof sits a sparsely wound coil and other small parts. The USB cleaner portion isn't much bigger than a credit card.

Meanwhile the case work including the L brackets used for the inside corners fall easily in the overkill category.

Even though the innards are sparse, their cases concealing them are properly tough and ruggedly handsome.

If top performance needs naught else, why add ballast? To satisfy the parts counters in the peanut galleries?

Here's the stack attack coming from behind. Time to play.