Blinded by colours isn't the same as colour blind? "Regarding 3D printing, while I'm no expert, my experience shows that it's evolved incredibly fast. A few years ago, 3D printers weren't as user-friendly or practical as now. I have one large professional 3D printer which I actually prefer not to use. Instead I favour Bambu Lab printers. They are consumer-grade but built like workhorses, extremely easy to operate and essentially plug 'n' play. Anyone can start with them.

"This ease of use makes for a big difference. For example, the acoustic panels you saw in my studio required a combined 3'000 hours to print. If I distribute that across 10 printers, it'd be 300 hours per printer so only 12 days of printing. While that's a significant amount of time, I wanted unique and interesting panels. However, I don't see this becoming a commercial product due to the high cost and labour involved. For Viper, the Bambu Labs are true champs. Their top H2D model costs around €2'000 and can last for at least 10'000 hours of print time.

"As you calculated in your Darko podcast, with two of these I can print about 50 pairs a year. However, these machines can stack vertically and need only ~1m² of space per printer. I expect to sell around 100 pairs a year to start so need just two more printers to meet that demand. They operate 24/7. All I need to do is load filament which comes in 1kg packs like thin spaghetti on a spool. Even if I were to sell 200 pairs a year, I'd only need 4 more printers and a few additional square meters of space.

"This tech offers incredible flexibility with minimal labour; mainly design work and a bit of maintenance. I simply load four rolls of filament every five days and press start. When it comes to colours, I initially plan to offer black, white, grey and perhaps yellow, blue or red. This should avoid overwhelming clients with too many choices. Different filament from various companies has different properties and requires machine adjustments. Those take up the most time. I'm using Bambu Lab's PET-G high-speed filament and they offer a palette of about 20 colours. From their selection I could certainly order to print in more colours than my initial five or so." By mid July Greg had received his final care package from Germany's Mundorf to put the finishing touches on my samples' crossovers. Viper was ready to strike¹.
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¹ A fun fact on the deadly African Gaboon viper are its 2-inch fangs and venom volume per bite exceeded only by the King Cobra. In North Carolina, a man caring for such a snake which then bit him survived after being administered 44 (!) anti-venom treatments over a week. He still lost two fingers from the bite and required months of physical therapy. Most victims aren't as lucky and beyond therapy of any kind. For some Aussie television around snake poison, its use in recreational drugs and dying from a bite—never mind from a croc—hit up the truly brilliant Troppo Season 1 set in Far North Queensland.

As anti venom, I'd launched a pincer attack on my office. The enablers are NorStone steel stands ordered in from Amazon.ie. With Vibron isolators beneath their plinth they come to exactly 85cm. That's perfect for my desktop. The top plate is virtually identical to Viper's footprint. That's no coincidence. For why these stands already made a difference before Viper touched down, click the link. Since Greg expressed a preference for Viper over IQ, my second landing spot would be the usual downstairs system already shown…

… the third one the upstairs system with a 2 x 9½" force-cancelling Dynaudio sub and Germany's MusikBoxx in stacked acrylic slices with another dipole Mundorf AMT on top.