2: Never had any problems with the ldr side, as my prototype is still as it was when new and that's 7 years now powered 24/7. When I say in the instructions to leave the Lightspeed Attenuator at 1/2 volume when leaving it powered up and not listening, it's the led's I'm thinking of, even though when at full or min volume they are never at their max mA rating, it is in my opinion to share the use evenly so I say leave it at half way if not in use (listening).
5: The best is as it is now, it's simplicity in it's purest form, as the music signal only goes through one soldered resistor (ldr) from input to output, anything else would need to go through more devices. As for the power to drive the led's, it is known that battery is the purest form of dc power, and so many times we have A/B'ed between the wall wart and a Lithium Ion battery and nobody could detect the difference reliably some say they hear a difference but can't tell what it is. Even golden eared Sam Tellig, need to see with his own eyes if he has the wall wart or battery attached to his Lightspeed when he's listening.
As for the Warpspeed not interested in it, too much other crap being put into the signal path.
As for doing any other things to the Lightspeed, I would like to have more inputs, but the only way I would do them is to use Mercury Wetted relays for the input switching (which I believe are being made illegal) and that would be still not as good as only one input with no switching. So use one of these, and then you can still go direct when your really want to hear your system at it's best. http://www.decware.com/newsite/rotary.htm
The only thing I may do in the future if I find a reliable set is a remote control volume and I would make sure it's retrofittable to all older Lightspeeds. But I have not yet seen a system I'm happy with that has long term reliable supply and quality. For a remote volume you need, a quality remote, receiver circuit, motorized pot and power supply to run it and the receiver
Cheers George
