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When the opportunity arose to combine some professional photography compliments of Dan Wright's friend Marco Prozzo with accompanying commentary by Dan himself to stand in for a factory tour we'd otherwise conduct personally, I gladly took it. What follows are Dan's own words and Marco's photos. Ed


ModWright's factory is located in rural Washington State not far from Mt. St. Helens. The actual building was renovated from a 1948 machine shop built during the height of the logging period for which the area used to be known. The building is located on our personal acreage, backs onto a creek and is surrounded by trees. It is quite the idyllic setting for creating world-class audio equipment!


From the outside, the shop is intentionally not much to look at. It is well finished in modern building materials and completely reframed, resided, insulated and wired to spec for our needs. It is painted the color of the surrounding Cedar trees and meant to blend into the woods. I guess I like my privacy. As can be seen from the photos, once you walk in the door, it is all modern elegance and efficiency. We split the space pretty much down the middle, with the factory floor on one side and showroom, coffee nook, the 'plumbing essentials' and my office on the other.


We chose local artisan Diamond Concrete to refinish the existing 60-year old concrete floors rather than cover them.  They performed a multi-step grinding and polishing process followed by densifying, staining (espresso brown - hey, we're in the NorthWest) and sealing.  This produced a museum-quality mirror finish that is beautiful, rugged and effective for our needs. 


This finish was continued from the showroom into my office. The music room features 2 x 6 insulated wood stud construction on all four walls.  The ceiling features blown-in insulation and there is one door into the space.  We left one small window for some daylight. I didn't go crazy with multiple staggered layers of sheet rock as I might have but the room acoustics worked out very well all the same. 


The addition of Stephen Yates acoustic art panels bring both room acoustics and modern beauty to the room.  All artwork in my office is by Stephen Yates as well. 


All wiring is #10 Romex with 20A outlets and there are dedicated audio lines with dedicated grounds of course.


The music room dimensions are 30'  x 17.5'   x 10' LxWxH. The factory floor was ground by Diamond Concrete and finished with a state-of- the-art-epoxy paint that gave us a glossy and rugged floor to seal out moisture and allow for easy cleaning. 


Each work station is equipped with its own 20A dedicated circuit and multiple outlets. We have organized our workspace and parts inventory in such a way as to maximize efficiency and minimize 'travel' time per part and process à la Edward Deming.


I have assembled a talented and reliable team that allows us to continue to grow in a difficult economy and reach new levels of excellence in the design and production of ModWright Instruments  equipment. All photographs of this tour were taken by Marco Prozzo.








The new ModWright KWA 100 is a 100wpc class A/B design with hi/lo bias like the KWA 150. Instead of the latter's On-Semo ThermalTrak BJTs, it uses Mosfet outputs but the same Alan Kimmel-designed 'Solid State Music Stage' input circuit. The power transformer is a single 500VA unit and retail is set at $3,300. The 17' x 17' foot print is identical to the KWA 150 but the latter's 9" height drops to 6". Power specs are 150/250wpc into 8/4 ohms, 450/650 watts in bridged mono. Bandwidth is 10Hz - 100kHz +0, -1dB, unweighted S/N ratio -100dB and channel separation below 20kHz better than 75dB all measured at 0.05% THD. An integrated amplifier for 2010 is in the pipe line as well.


ModWright website
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