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"UPS Serviceart: Expedited. Gewicht: 83,0 LBS." UPS tracking data, terse as they are, announced real substance while I pondered the Kelso, Vancouver, Portland, Des Moines, Louisville and Newark route by which the KWA-150 advanced from Washington State to Oregon, Iowa, Kentucky and New Jersey before boarding its trans-Atlantic flight to La Suisse via Great Britain and Germany. Down with the routine, my wiry Asian delivery man would merely grin while heaving this latest box up my well-worn stone steps. He makes up in grit what he lacks in size. A parallel shipment was bound to Hong Kong where a KWA 150, Dan was told, would feature on the cover of HiFi Review. A reviewer Down Under also was expectant. On March 21, a few days before my unit would arrive, Dan updated an online thread with "we have sold 47 out of the first run of 50 amplifiers. We are better than half-way through filling back orders. We have increased our staff by three since the amp project started and are starting to roll with greater efficiency. I have been asked if the spike feet come stock with the unit and the answer is yes. Our website is being further revised to allow me to keep content fresh and edit at will. I am also activating the 'ModBlog' (ModWright Blog) on our site soon where I will share information on a regular basis."
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American Iron Lives! You could be forgiven for bleating Milwaukee-isms when laying eyes on and your back into the KWA-150. It's a beast. And build quality has forever raised the bar in this sector.

Our inline V-twin engine mounts its chunky toroids on stout blue-anodized aluminum L-brackets. The back-lit fascia logo is in fact a massive power mains switch that floats on a big wire spring. It's a tricky dress item to implement perfectly. Much easier but visually far less impressive would have been an ordinary rocker or toggle. For his first amplifier, the modman clearly went all out.

Like a Harley engine gussied up with chrome bits, the KWA-150 proudly shows off its heat sinks in what has quickly become Dan Wright's signature blue.
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Unbolting a massive stacked side panel reveals the engine valves aka ThermalTrak output devices and seven of ModWright's very own capacitors.

Here's a closer shot of the transistors.

This board sits between the dual-mono Alan Kimmel input modules.

Here is one of those input modules with its canned input transformer and more ModWright capacitors.

The crowning touch is the power switch. On the honky dory meter, no listening already pronounces the KWA-150 hunky as hell. Pride of ownership purely on appearance and build is very high. How would the dory half of the equation work out in the listening seat?