Oh, I definitely have plenty of self soldered contact mics at home. The Ears is more of a nice option to have another input. and i really like the surfacing of it.
And regarding the qu-bit... well... it's definitely out of price range right now...
The OR was acutally the only 2hp-wide logic module that i was able to find. would have been nice to find a 2hp-wide comparator. maybe solder one on my own... can't be so complicated, right? :D