- With advent of SACD & DVD-A along with restrictive digital rights management it became unclear with the future of external hi-fi DACs was.
- Computer crash took out XD0 PCB source files.
- Day job downsized, back on de street, bank account back in the red.
- Designed/installed $1,200 video projection & surround sound system for church Sunday school room. Ah yes crawling around in a 50 year old church attic in the summer, always my idea of fun.
- Designed/installed $250,000 home theater to keep some cash flow happening.
- Awesome new day job, (see http://www.smartpigging.com/) work butt off to impress while keeping commitment to previous two items.
- Divert into high efficiency speaker arena, numerous false starts to obtain vendor for boxes.
- Eighty-two year old mother contracted pancreatic cancer, with sister see her off to heaven to be with my father. Our Lord Jesus was faithful and merciful through the entire ordeal. She is in a better place but how I miss her.
- Resolve to never again put hi-fi (a.k.a. Audio Crafters Guild) ahead of my family. Spend hours at dusty moto-cross tracks supporting my son’s entry into racing. Rewarded with the heartfelt thanks of a 13-year-old. I did miss the last moto of 2006 while at RMAF 2006. My wonderful partner (and wife of 15 years) took up the slack. In the last series he won First Place in the 80cc beginner class, I doubt I will ever forget the sound of his voice on the cell phone exclaiming “dad, you ought to see the trophy, it’s as tall as our van is wide!”
- Become quite enamored with the sound of certain class-D amps. Evaluate many types to separate the wheat from the chaff.
- Design, build, and take 1000 Series amps to RMAF 2006.

Of course I will always have a soft spot for hi-fi DACs as the X-DAC 3.0 was literally the product on which Audio Crafters Guild was founded. I will do another one once the 1000 series amps are established and production flowing. The DAC chip designed in the XD0 is obsolete and not available in production quantities. And there are better SRC chips available for the asynchronous jitter reduction function and in 2006 we really need a USB input in addition to S/PDIF. So there is a bit of design work to get a 2006/2007 version of XD0 up and running.

Happy listening

Norman Tracy