![Image](http://www.airtight-anm.com/_src/sc1991/09-2.jpg)
Ivan Cloney cruelly mentioned that there was an upgrade available for it, which could be retrofitted. The upgrade was an improved volume control. I didn't think much about it, but I looked it up and found out that this was an ALPS RK 501 Potentiometer
![Image](http://avpg2.homepage.t-online.de/img/RK50112_1_400x300.jpg)
Recently I discovered that ALPS had discontinued this pot some time ago, but I assumed that Airtight had a stash of them. I asked Ivan to make inquiries and discovered that Airtight had just one left! I ordered it.
The shiny object arrived in Blackrock a few weeks ago and I brought my ATC 2 in for the minor surgery required. Now the ATC 2 is an extremely good pre-amp, which was clearly better than my old Jadis JP30MC which in turn was clearly head-and-shoulders above all the pre-amps I had been able to compare it with, some of them very highly thought of. With the the new pot, all of its virtues were polished to a higher sheen: the transparency is just staggering! Pulling out very familiar records (like Simone Kermes in LAVA)
![Image](http://imgs.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2009/09/18/dd-cds27_ph_kerm_0500612409.jpg)
I'm hearing around and behind the musicians, hearing all the continuo instruments in detail, hearing their timbres beautifully, their melodies truly: in fact everything I thought the ATC 2 did perfectly it now does better!
Icing on the cake update: I got an unexpected bonus from dCS in the post this week, a data CD to use to update the software on the Scarlatti DAC
![Image](http://www.audiofast.com/prods/dcs_scarlatti_dac.jpg)
This includes improved DSD play and two new filters for 44.1 play. Can I just say "unbelievable palpability"?