Everyone,
I am happy to report that the amplifier arrived yesterday, safe and sound. Pete did a superb job packing the unit. It came in two boxes, one for the amp itself and one for the tubes. The amp was lovingly packed and double boxed. Nothing UPS could do was going to do any damage. :-)
I took the bottom cover off the case before putting the amplifier back in my rig because I wanted to see what Pete had done under the hood. I will post pictures on my blog in the coming days, but he did a beautiful job cleaning up some of my less than pretty wiring and resoldering where he thought the joints needed some TLC. Pete is really quite an artisan.
I am delighted to report that my beloved Kit 1 is working great. I wouldn't say that it is an entirely different beast, because that wonderful purity of tone is still there. But it feels like a much more powerful unit. Clearly the amplifier was not putting out full power before because I had to crank the volume knob up to around 11 o'clock or 12 o'clock to get any real volume out of it. Now, I find myself playing the amplifier at around 9 o'clock  quite a difference.
The distortion with music with lots of deep bass in it has vanished! Clearly, the amplifier is not running out of juice anymore.
By the time I get everything hooked up last night I only had about 25 minutes to listen to music, but I will post more impressions here and in the blog.
Very happy camper here!
