So don’t rush to assume it‘s an upgrade and that your current Extreme has somehow been surpassed. That was not the intention here.
I guess how much of an upgrade it is depends on your mains “quality”. It’s significant here. I do not use 50K in powercords/fuses/mains conditioning though and have not compared it to something like that.
This project has been about trying to match or exceed the dynamics of a mains powered linear supply. This will be reduced significantly with a off the shelf battery supply, even if it’s a very large 100lbs lifepo4 battery. Clarity and transparency are up with an off the shelf battery supply, but there is a slight harsh quality to the upper frequencies, a touch of mechanical sound to the midrange, the worst however is the bass is slower and muddier, this is very distracting as it does not match with the rest creating an inbalance.
As often the case this project evolved over time, turning into something more (extreme) then originally thought necessary, but we did succeed in achieving full satisfaction. What you see is something which is insane overkill. This can supply up to ~12.000 watts and run cool.
that was driven by the need to maintain the current price. The existing model is increasing in price significantly.
The Extreme chassis price just keeps rising, it does not look like this is going to get better, most likely even worse considering the current situation in Europe. I am convinced we have no choice to look into more modern production techniques and smarter manufacturing. The heatsinks displayed at the show are 3D printed, a single one matches the surface area of the huge heatsink of the Extreme, but uses 20% of the material.