Thanks for your great comments guys (my fellow Bottlehead enthusiasts
). I'm a sucker for browns, tans and copper colors, anything on the warmish side.
Great look - Awesome rivets! I am building mine now too. I noticed the rubber ring under the tube socket - good time to put that in!
What is the extra terminal strip in the inputs for?
I decided to use Teflon sockets for this build as they dampen to some degree (for the big 300Bs). The teflon sockets are notably smaller than the stock sockets, so in order to get them installed and not to fall through the other side, I had to use the o-rings, which is serendipitous anyway as they decouple the sockets from the chassis. After installing, I noted that the round headed screws interacted with the 300B base, so I swapped them out for flush mounted screws. While not as pretty, they offer the necessary clearance.
The additional terminal strip is actually for the input transformer, so I can have a balanced input.
It looks like your going with the BeeQuiet during the initial build. While usually not recommended by BH, I will say the BQ made a huge improvement in my BeePre.
It would be cool if BH had a secondary manual for those of us who purchased the BQ with the kit, however I figure as long as I'm careful I'll work things out.