Eliminating spade connectors, upgrading bits, soldering all of it in

I can only offer that one should look under the hood, educate yourself on what is quality and what isn’t. 

@sns 

You’re right of course, however that’s not a trivial ask!

@waytoomuchstuff 

The car analogy doesn’t quite fit hifi for a number of reasons, however there is no denying that restomods now fetch eye-watering amounts of money, whereas 20 years ago you’d have been lucky to get (some of) your parts money back and thrown in your hundreds and hundreds of hours of work for free. I think that upwards trend started when retired oral surgeons from California started pouring small fortune into 356 Outlaw builds, but I digress. In any event, it’s a good trend, in my opinion at least.

Shocking! No one with really good equipment would do this. Value just went to ZERO!!

@kymanor1 

Respectfully, the only thing that went to zero is your credibility

...assuming you weren't jesting? You can't always tell in an online venue.

@sns Why people defer to OEM’s for so many products is beyond me, people just assume manufacturers have their best interests in mind, this especially in higher priced goods. Maybe they have, maybe they haven’t, I can only offer that one should look under the hood, educate yourself on what is quality and what isn’t. 

imo, 90% of the mainstream folks out there play it safe, and it makes really good sense for them if they are not hands-on nor want to explore or understand the benefits of upgrades, or how to explain it all.

BTW, I formerly designed and built (as a side hobby) hand built one-off custom cars, some vintage race theme cars - along with several friends. Putting a Coyote in a vintage 60s Mustang, or an LS in a ’59 Corvette is something none of us would have done in the past, and now its common (as we all see now days). What’s shocking is my buddy sold his all orginal GT390 FE 1967 Mustang for $90k, top $, and yet the all new restomodded version of the same car with a Coyote all updated with Coyote, modern suspension, brakes, fetching $280k now. 

Different strokes for different folks and wealthy buyers who can buy a fully modernized version, some of this does cross over to audio gear. One pair of my monoblock tube amps all updated now with new Nichicon Power Caps and Mundorf Silver-Gold EVO caps sounds quite amazing compared to its original self that was built to a price-point by the manufacturer, quote, "to keep price down". Yep, gotta draw the line somewhere, and that makes sense to get customers to pay for and buy your products. A starting point for some, not the end game perhaps.  

Modders and DIY folks are cut from a different cloth, as we well know. That’s okay, and whatever makes people feel safe, or better - good for them. :) 

When, a statement is started with "Respectfully" it usually means no respect.  That's fine.  Like most of us here, been around with this audio thing for decades.  maybe I should have said in my experience I have never seen anyone that has spent tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars on audio equipment that would do this DIY mod.  Your equipment value, warranty, resale, would be gone.  To me, many people would just get better equipment vs do this.  Speaker alone are thousands. I have about 75K invested and that is pennies compared to many of the systems on this forum.  Would you guys really do this vs just getting better stuff?

kymanor1 Would you guys really do this vs just getting better stuff?

If I spent $75k on a pair of speakers, i’d be asking the original design engineer for those speakers "what upgrades are available" first (if any) and see what they might share first, privately, 1:1.  If none, then maybe your speakers already have all the smart upgrades, listen, enjoy and be happy with them as-is.  

When you speak more with the design engineers of a product, in most cases what gets designed and readied for mainstream production lines is available in a particular configuration for specific reasons, functionally, financially, and to optimized assembly time requirements, in most cases. 

Now lets say you speak a bit more with that same design engineer of those $75k speakers, and get to know them more, ask them this, "if you could upgrade these speakers", and with "no cost constraints", ask them "what would you change or upgrade to make them sound better".   See if there is anything else, more, or better they might happen to mention.  IF they say "nothing more", maybe they are maxed out now as much as can be.  Worth the ask - if interested and motivated to find out additional intel on them, if they are willing to share.  Base Production Line versions of a product are not always equal to Custom/Signature/Upgraded versions that get offered later on, or not in all cases with some product lines.  Can be fun to ask :) 

Why wouldn't you get better stuff? First off,  more expensive equipment doesn't necessarily get you better sound.  Gaining greater resolution/transparency is only part of the equation, even more important to me is voicing and/or obtaining a particular presentation I desire. I run all low wattage SET and push pull tube amps and DHT preamps,  relatively simple circuits and low parts count. These type amps and pre's are fertile ground for custom builds, I can build my own, have one built to spec, and I can modify custom builds. Low wattage amps don't generally cost an arm and a leg. Quality transformers and power supplies are what sets great sounding SET, DHT components from the ordinary, one doesn't have to spend loads of money to get real quality here.

Custom streamers are another area I dabble in, I've learned much about streaming from the experts over at Audiophilestyle forum. Only the highest quality streamers such as Taiko and Wadax best the custom streamers we build, companies like Pink Faun, JCAT and others provide us with the components that challenge and/or best some pretty expensive off the shelf streamers.