Hi,

Correctoundo. BTW, the Aux output and a few other features make this puppy an exceptional Srround sound for stereo processor, very much along the lines of Dynavector Superstereo.... But that as they say is another story.

The Op-Amp's are SMD JRC 4580 under the PCB. BEst terminated with extreme prejudice and replaced with AD8066 or AD8620 AFTER changing the PSU Regs for the analog stage to 12V.

I found mine to have a lot less "footprint" sonically than the stock UC-8024 but a little down on modded UC, all using analog inputs.

You might find my little tutorial on how to use them which is posted within my own Yahoo group useful.....

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Thunderstone_technical/files/TL Circuits/Ultracurve/

I found it non too bad, but for some jobs I like to use EQ's for (remastering) it is a bit clumsy. Still, considering the price, excellent.

See above.

Definitly worth it.

Yup.

One more you forgot. The electronically balanced output used in this thing nearly shortcircuits the output of one of the two output stage Op-Amp's while the other must work doubly hard in terms of swing. That causes problems with thermal crosstalk from the near shortede halve and the extra swing.

Put a suitable 1:1 bifilar wound mu-metal cored output transformer in there, it needs to handle only +12dbu @ 20Hz if you use the +12db level setting (highly recommended for domestic use).

Ciao T