Here's what I've pieced together about the 2.4SE. We didn't know that Jim was dying, but he did, and wanted to memorialize this model as close to his heart. It was originally intended as all-cosmetic. He loved that bright red birdseye maple, and added the outriggers, some other touches and his signature. The crossover upgrade was possibly an after-thought, or nearly so. The whole gang used that idea as an opportunity to compare and contrast XO components and they settled on the ClarityCap SAs (CC's then state of the art.) I suspect those gold bolts are non-magnetic. Anybody know?
I believe the signature run was 150 pair. Thiel's MO would be to have made all those cabinets as a batch, but the crossovers would be made as needed. They were assigned their own set of serial numbers which would go from 1 to 300. I am speculating these details, but haven't found direct competing evidence.
It seems from our direct experience, that the crossovers migrated from early numbers being point to point on masonite and later units being various generations of Chinese components on printed circuit boards. Varying levels of quality. Also, Rob has supplied SE upgrade kits for non-SE cabinets which would have retained their original serial numbers. I have seen an early pair of SEs with classic Thiel parts made very well, and later SEs with shoddy coils and parts quality I found to sound harsher. So, they're not all created equal.
I'll add that my further work with some of you has gone further. That work is not yet ready for prime time, but progress is being made.
It's been a long time since Beetlemania reported in these pages his complete, systematic upgrade where every XO component was eventually changed including hookup wire. JA might remember the pages of his reports.
