This from the perspective of a DIYer.
Every resistor, every capacitor matters. Not to mention every single tube, transistor, op-amp, and transformer, as well as the topology. Just this month, I had to scramble because a simple resonance tweak changed the character of my analogue front end, from being clean and precise to being cleaner but unpleasantly shrill. I did not want to lose the new-found clarity, but had to soften the sound somehow, so I changed some teflon caps to styrene, decreased the impedance on my step-up transformer, and added capacitance to a cable.
The moral of the story is, go with what sounds good, BUT, component synergy may change with every tweak.
Every resistor, every capacitor matters. Not to mention every single tube, transistor, op-amp, and transformer, as well as the topology. Just this month, I had to scramble because a simple resonance tweak changed the character of my analogue front end, from being clean and precise to being cleaner but unpleasantly shrill. I did not want to lose the new-found clarity, but had to soften the sound somehow, so I changed some teflon caps to styrene, decreased the impedance on my step-up transformer, and added capacitance to a cable.
The moral of the story is, go with what sounds good, BUT, component synergy may change with every tweak.