[Bill Baker]

About our modifications and exclusive modified products

It could easily be argued that using high quality internal passive components, especially the coupling capacitors, power supply filter capacitors, rectifying diodes, signal path resistors, etc., will have much more impact on the performance of your system than spending three times the cost of one component on system "tweaks". How many people do you know that will spend thousands of dollars on such items as interconnect and speaker cables, isolation devices, roller bearings, NOS tubes or even a $100 jar of marbles? What good will all these additional tweaks do if you are not already working within the full potential of your amplifier in the first place? It's like putting racing slicks on a Ford Escort.


Also, we are often asked if and why modifications are recommended. -- Every product, new or used,  [can] benefit from being modified if the proper path is chosen. There are some manufacturers that already use only the best of components when assembling their products but these products are very costly. To modify these products with the wrong components could destroy the sonic flavor you have already come to love. We modify products based on price/performance value while tailoring all of our work to fit within a justifiable price point. Also keep in mind that Response Audio does not actually alter the circuit design in most of our modifications but rather installs upgraded internal components that enhances the natural hidden potential within. We will often alter the internal layout to optimize the upgrades that are implemented into the product. Our mods are based on personal research to find just the right combination of parts and rearrangement rather than just throwing in a bunch of parts that are “claimed” to be the best. Not all combinations make for a sonic improvement no matter how costly the parts. With our modifications, it is not any single upgrade that makes the difference but rather the sum of the whole that brings everything together and brings out the very best in any given product.


Buying a new amplifier. The following example is based on a true story.

 Let's say you have a budget of $5,000 for amplification. What do you do? Okay, you go down to your local audio dealer and look at amps retailing for about $4,500 - $5,000. They sound pretty good, they look good and they fall right in your budget. You find one you like. "Good enough, I'll take that one". You also need some cables to go along with the setup. You find a pair of interconnect and speaker cables that you like so you tack on another $800 to the bill. You pay your dealer, take your amp and cables home and hook it up in your system. All's good for a few weeks and you are loving your new component. One day you are over at your buddy's house and he wants you to listen to his new tube amplifier that is similar to yours so you both hang out for a few hours spinning some of your favorite recordings. At the end of the day you turn to your buddy and comment, "Nice sounding amp, sounds better than mine. Bet you paid a fortune for it". He replies, "Yes, it does sound good, doesn't it. The amp cost me $2,700, cables were $300"........ Your jaw hits the floor.

  Turns out your buddy just bought a Reference Jolida JD801 that uses 6550 power tubes, same as your integrated tube amp. After talking some more with your buddy you find out that his amp was a new, modified unit with only the best internal components and  full warranty yet cost $2,000 less than the stock amp you just bought and his cabling was $500 cheaper also. You think to yourself, "Hhmmm.... think my dealer will take back my stuff?"

  It turns out that there are many high priced products out there that use mediocre internal parts. They do this to fall within a target price point. So why are you still paying 5 grand? Usually because you have to pay for the manufacturer's 12,000 sq. ft. factory and warehouse,  marketing, R&D expenses, dealer markup, etc., etc. This is not to say you did not buy a great unit but rather there is an advantage of purchasing a modified product or having your current unit modified from a reputable company, much more for your money.

 Our products were developed to offer just that, more for your money. You will be amazed of what hidden potential lays within most of today's affordable components. Response Audio is dedicated to bringing it all to the surface.  You can surpass the sonic performances of some of the most expensive gear on the market at a fraction of their cost leaving more of your cash available for the important things....... more music!


Summary

Rather than paying several thousands of dollars to purchase a new stock amplifier that [may] be an upgrade over what you already own, you can upgrade your current amp or purchase a new modified unit to exceed the level of that much more expensive stock unit. You could be spending a lot of cash for a “name brand” product only to find out the parts quality is no better than what you have on your rack now. You may also be paying 3-4 times more for a product that is identical to yours with the only difference being a “name brand” badge. Wouldn’t that suck!! By having your amplifier modified, you are maintaining that presentation you fell in love to begin with while bringing out and enhancing much more of it’s capabilities, the hidden potential within. Not to mention, now you know what is inside your amplifier. The best aspect of it all is that you invested only a fraction of cost of a new stock unit leaving more money available for further system upgrades and/or adding to your music collection.


 To be continued.

  Part 2 will contain information on the different levels of exclusive products and modifications we have to offer. How they came about and how to justify the most extreme modified product.

[zybar]

Bill,

Why don't disagree with what you posted, it should be pointed out that the big negative to going the mod route is resale.  You almost never come close to getting back the amout spent on mods if you need or decide to sell your modified gear.
 
What I would like to see is more modifiers have in their stable a demo piece.  This would allow a buyer to be more confident that the piece they are interested in works for them.  As I know keeping inventory costs money, I would personally be ok with the mods costing a little bit more in order to try before I buy.

BTW, from exchanging e-mails with Chris Venhaus, it sounds like you did one hell of a job on the Extreme Hurricans - Congrats!

George

[Bill Baker]

Hi George,

 

it should be pointed out that the big negative to going the mod route is resale. You almost never come close to getting back the amout spent on mods if you need or decide to sell your modified gear.

  I all honesy, I have seen modified pieces bring in much more in precentage as compared to stock counterparts.
  With personally modifying close to 100 amplifiers last year, I only noticed 3 pieces coming up for sale on AudioGon or Ebay. I think the reasoning for this situation was due to the fact that many of these were modifications to products sent in by consumers. What I mean by this is that they were already familiar with what they had and only wanted to bring out more of the hidden potential within.

What I would like to see is more modifiers have in their stable a demo piece. This would allow a buyer to be more confident that the piece they are interested in works for them. As I know keeping inventory costs money, I would personally be ok with the mods costing a little bit more in order to try before I buy.

 Actually I do have many of my Signature and Reference pieces available in my system for evaluation. The problem is location. With dealing with cdonsumers all over the country, only a small percentage have the ability to come over and listen. As far as the more expensive EXtreme products....I'm working on it. Yes, this is a lot of inventory for a smaller company such as myself.

BTW, from exchanging e-mails with Chris Venhaus, it sounds like you did one hell of a job on the Extreme Hurricans - Congrats!

  Thanks for the kind words. That was an intense job. Without Chris offering his personal amps as Beta units, I would not have been able to bring this particular product out quite so soon. My thanks go out to him for his trust in my workmanship and reputation.

[mcrespo71]

I all honesy, I have seen modified pieces bring in much more in precentage as compared to stock counterparts.

Really?  I usually see the opposite on audiogon.  I see people who have put in mods on a piece and price the piece with mods too high.  I would personally give a buyer maybe 30% more for a very good modded piece if he/she were selling used, as from what I've seen, you don't get it back.  I personally met two people who modded Quads (ala Crosby) take financial baths when they went back up for resale.  As always, YMMV.

Michael

[ChrisVH]

I really haven't compared what modified components are selling for vs. unmodded gear, but have noticed most of it being in the digital area, which is notorious for losing value quickly anyway... Used high-end audio has always been a buyers market, also...
 
I would like to chime-in a few additional ramblings:

The mod business is still relatively new in the grand scheme of things, and many people aren't quite sure of what all this mod stuff is all about. To the average Joe, replacing a shitty cap, binding posts, diodes or resistors with good ones means exactly what? I think as we move forward, particular modification specialists will build their "brand" as more people talk about the difference particular mods have made to their gear, and as more audiophiles become educated on the value of each modder's work, resale value will strengthen based on overall value. Off the top of my head, Bill at Response, Dan at ModWright, Steve at Empirical, and Steve at Great Northern Sound have done alot to add credibility to this business, and each are pioneers in their own right... I know this because we often share the same customers, and word travels quick in this biz...

That said, I never have bought ANY of my equipment based on what I expect to be able to sell it for down the road. At least it's not been a MAJOR consideration. I've always known that with the relatively high markups in the audio biz, I'm going to get bent-over either way . Same thing goes with buying a car. No matter how great a deal I thought I got on a new or used auto, I always seem to take it in the fanny come time to trade in or sell. That's just life I guess. Unlike cars though, I make every audio purchase as if it is going to be my last.  The eternal optimist, I guess  

With mods, there's a disproportionately higher ratio of labor vs. parts, so you are buying expertise more than something tangible, and the markup on parts is relatively low, if anything at all. Hell, I probably pay my plumber more than what most these mod guys make per hour... Expertise is hard to put a value on, but my guess is this is no different than people modding cars, Harley's , or other exotica to get everything exactly the way they like it, and to extract every last bit of performance out of their gear. I spent an entire summer modding a vintage 11 piece Ludwig Classic drumset that I paid $900 for. I stripped the crappy covering off with aheat gun and ALOT of patience, sanded the beautiful maple wood down smooth to the touch, took out all the lugs (holds the drum head to the shell) and stuffed with cotton to decrease vibration, re-dressed the drum bearing edges to make less contact with the drum head for more resonance, hand sanded and put several coats of natural Danish oil finish on them, then put at least 40 coats of tung oil/poly varnish on the maple shells with a 600 grit wet sand between each coat. After owning these drums for 10 years, I decided to make the transition to electronic drums which utilize actual drum heads, and sell the old drums. I put these drums in the paper for $900 (the same amount I paid for them BEFORE all the work I did). I got 2 calls, and no sales. Does this mean I wasted all that time and money? I don't think so. Just because the lowballers don't see the value int hese drums doesn't mean these babies are worth less than I paid.... My guess is everybody here has a similar story...

The bottom line is that, I can say without any hesitation I'll take my ASL EXtreme Hurricanes for $11K before any other amp I've heard near that price.  If and when I go to sell, some lucky schmuck is going to get a helluva deal, but that doesn't mean I got a shitty one...  I'll just be grinning as I crank the tunes, and know that my Canes are as tricked-out as one of those masterpieces at Orange County Choppers...

[JLM]

One of real tough aspects to modding is the ever changing models of equipment to work with, especially with digital (players and amps).  It's to the point that it's embarassing to even ask if a model can be modded, knowing that within 6 months it will no longer be available.

[Bill Baker]

One of real tough aspects to modding is the ever changing models of equipment to work with, especially with digital (players and amps). It's to the point that it's embarassing to even ask if a model can be modded, knowing that within 6 months it will no longer be available.

 This is true. I am constantly receiving inquiries to modify an amp that is not listed on my site. This does not mean I cannot go through the unit but rather there would be more labor involved with one-off modifications. Usually it is some who, again, has a product they've had for sometime, like it's sonic characteristics and only want to bringout more of it's hidden potential.

but have noticed most of it being in the digital area, which is notorious for losing value quickly anyway... Used high-end audio has always been a buyers market, also

...

  This is also very true. With so many modders working with digital gear, you never know when it's going to stop. Digital equipment advances so rapidly that any given product may be outdated in 6 months. I beleive this to be the reason why you will always find more digital gear available for sale. Some people will always want the latest and greatest which is far more often than with tube amplification. It's likes computers. I have had my computer for 6 years which means there are 12 new generations that are far more advanced. It's not the fastest or most advanced available but does what I need it to do. (Besides, the latest in computer technology would only confuse me).

  Tube amp technology is different, IMHO. This is trickle down technology that really hasn't changed a whole lot since the 50's. The designs have changed, there are far better and more available internal components to choose from and many more variations (configurations) available but when you get right down to it, your MAC 275 will hold it's value much longer than any SACD player, processor or receiver. It will last much longer also. How many people are still running their 1985 CD player?


 I am not saying you don't loose value as soon as you take it out for a test drive but you will get more back in percentage than you would for you digital source component.

  We all know we are going to take a loss on ANYTHNG we sell on the used market. Audio is no exception.

[zybar]

Chris,

When I buy something I absolutely think about what I can resell it for.  I have learned that in this hobby I can't be sure how anything will perform until I get to hear it in my system.  As such, I try very hard to buy at competitive prices (new or used) knowing that a percentage of all gear I buy/try will not work out.

If you didn't offer a trial period, I never would have tried your products and had a chance to see how good they are.  

I understand it is more difficult for mod shops to offer trial periods, but maybe they can have a sample available to demo.  I would be more than willing to pay shipping costs and slightly higher mod fees to offset the cost.

George

[ChrisVH]

I agree 100% about the trial period with gear, George. I also make sure the company stands behind a product with a reasonable warranty.

Perhaps modders could work out a demo program whereby units could be shipped for a 7 day in-home trial period? Units would already be burned-in, so no need for 30 or 60 days to decide what the thing sounds like. There would be logistical problems with tubed equipment that would mean costs of this need be shifted to the consumer: shipping, insurance, tube life depreciation, tube breakage. Since we're talking about fairly hefty gear that has a fairly high damage rate with the Gorillas at UPS and FedEx, that would seem to be the main stumbling block I would think. When something gets damaged, the paperwork hassle is one of the most obtuse exercises I've ever done. When it gets down to it, it might be as much as $100-200 or more just to demo an amp for a week. Are people willing to pay that?

The only other thing I can think of is having a "dealer" network for modded equipment. Dealers are not going to do this for free, meaning the cost of the equipment goes up by 20-100%.

It looks difficult to find a middleway point between business and consumer that works well for both. when it comes to modded gear, except for light, sturdy, and relatively inexpensive equipment...

One last idea I'd like to throw out there: To increase resale value of modded equipment, perhaps a business could tell its customers that if they ever wanted to sell their gear in the 2nd hand market, the business would direct customers their way for a % of the sale price or a flat fee of "X". Similar to a consignment situation. The modder would gurantee that the equipment is in good working order, and warranty the equipment for say 30 days or so. Sort of like a "certified" preowned vehicle" program.... This would be more efficient at matching up buyers and sellers, and would likely increase resale value of these moddded units...  

Just a thought...

[vrs]

Any comments on how a modded pre amp
,with better audiophile grade parts will perform,
When compared to a pre amp with better designed circuit, but with average grade parts( example AVA Transcendence 7)

Any advantage in price performance Ratio between the 2 ??

I saw an advertisement at Audiogon for a modded Jolida for 3000$ . At that price point it faces tough competition.Purchasing that with out listening or reading any reviews is like taking a chance.

[zybar]

Bill,

Can we move this outside your forum so I can expand my comments and thoughts?  I think this is a great topic, but I really don't feel comfortable talking about other vendors within your circle.

George

[Bill Baker]

I also make sure the company stands behind a product with a reasonable warranty

 I stand behind all new modified products and modifications on preowned equipment with a full 1 year warranty. I am also one who always stands behind a product that is out of warranty if the new interested party wants me to go through it and check it out before purchasing.

Perhaps modders could work out a demo program whereby units could be shipped for a 7 day in-home trial period? Units would already be burned-in, so no need for 30 or 60 days to decide what the thing sounds like.

  A good idea but very hard to carry out with so many custom modifications. I rarely sell "set modifications" as everyone usually wants something a little different added to their unit to make it unique. Also with so many products available, the initial cost to have one of everything available for demo would be impossible for a smaller company such as myself.
  I am working on having more of these products available in the Chicago area location and possibly another in Southern Florida.

hefty gear that has a fairly high damage rate with the Gorillas at UPS and FedEx,

 I lost 4 very expensive amps in a 16 day period. I have yet to see any responsibility taken from USP and it was clearly a case of Gorilla Abuse.

and warranty the equipment for say 30 days or so. Sort of like a "certified" preowned vehicle" program.... This would be more efficient at matching up buyers and sellers, and would likely increase resale value of these moddded units...

 I have offered an extended 30 day warranty for units that were already a year out of warranty when a new buyer was interested. I also offer to go through and test a unit if the buyer or selling is willing to pay for the shipping. When doing so, I have extended a new warranty to 60 days. For the most part, if a tube amp has been working without trouble for 30 days, it has a long life ahead of it.
  With teh few of my modified new amps that have gone up for sale, all three of them (this is all I know of showing up for sale in the past 18 months) sold for less than a 10% loss of the original purchase price. You will not find this with most any moddified or even untoched digital component.

 Can we move this outside your forum so I can expand my comments and thoughts? I think this is a great topic, but I really don't feel comfortable talking about other vendors within your circle.

Hi zybar,
  In all honesty, I do not know how to move a thread from one forum to the next. If someone here does, be my guest.

 

but I really don't feel comfortable talking about other vendors within your circle

.

 I'm not sure in which way you mean this but if you are worried about insulting me by praising other products or vendors, don't. I fully respect and appreciate all the other vendors here on the circle and most outside the Circle. In fact, I own products from many of the other vendors here even though I don't carry them.

  The choice is yours. Just let me know where it goes should it be moved.

[Brendan]

I'm using a 1985 cd player!  

Sony 707ES.  
Actually, I don't know how old it is, I'm not the original owner.

[Bill Baker]

I'm using a 1985 cd player!

  WOW! That's cool. I actually own a very old Sharp CD player that I thing is from the mid 80's. It's in a box somewhere. It does still work but the drawer need a little help opening as the gears are warn out.

[avahifi]

Do you use a square wave generator and scope to make any "before and after" evaluations of your modifications?  I ask this because in our experience, some of the large film capacitors similar to those I see in your photographs are relatively inductive and microphonic and can add an undesirable underdamped high frequency ringing to the circuit operation, not a good thing.  That, coupled with long inductive component leads, can make unanticipated changes that are not for the better unless they are carefully evaluated on the test bench.

Our criteria for capacitors is that they be as physically small as possible for the application, be non-inductive, non-microphonic, not heat sensitive, mount on the PC cards with as short a lead length as possible, be of the proper voltage, have significantly wider bandwidth than the circuit requires, and be matched closely channel to channel in circuit applications determining gain and pole points. We also need the vendor to supply complete electrical engineering data on the parts so they can be mathematically modeled in circuit analysis programs.

For an amateur changing circuit parts to get improved musical results, the most important tools are a capacitor meter and ohm meter.  Parts are not the value that is marked on them, there are the value that they are!  If one replaces many capacitors and resistors with what are supposed to be better sounding parts, but does not measure the value of each part removed and replace it with a new part with the measured exact same value, then you are making many more changes than you think, namely the phase gain relationships of many parts of the circuit.  If you inadvertently change all the parts values in a circuit, you certainly will change the sound, but not necessarily for the better.

We would be much more comfortable with after market audio circuit improvers if they provided much more detail as to how they determine what the worse case problems in the designs they are working on are, and how they apply good electrical engineer techniques towards resolving those worse case problems.

I understand the goal is the music, and everyone has their own ideas as to how to go about that, and we certainly don't have all the answers.  But I am concerned that I don't see much in the way of careful engineering out there used to achieve these goals.

I would love to be educated about this.  Hey if we knew right now how to make our own products better by selecting the "right" parts and they actually met the criteria I mentioned in the second paragraph above, we would do it in production here.

Note that we understand that the best test equipment in the world and all the circuit analysis time possible still does not provide all the answers.  There still are aspects to the audio playback equipment that escape all the objective tests we know how to devise yet.  But spending lots of money on very expensive parts in a circuit with overlooked design limitaitons is probably not as cost effective an improvement as finding and fixing the remaining worse case design problems.

We wish there were more people out there doing this and publishing their results.

Frank Van Alstine

[JLM]

Frank raises some good points, but one question that really struck me is:

Why don't higher end vendors get together with modders to "get it right the first time"?  Even if they can't agree to cooperate why wouldn't the vendor just buy the modded verison and start using at least some of the mods in their product?  Seems like it'd be cheaper to build it with the mods included the first time than to have to waste parts and duplicate some of the labor.

A second point:

Why wouldn't a higher end vendor be in a position to do it right the first time?  Granted a second set of ears can find ways to improve, but how much should the modder be able to viably improve a given product?

[zybar]

I am not technical in this area and don't pretend to be...

What I can offer is my experience that was just replicated today at Phil's (owner of Sonic Spirits).

Phil was using a Sony S-7700 stock for a transport in his system (which consists of top of the line Focus speakers, top of the line Blue Circle stereo amp, Dodson dac, Audience and Zen cables - in other words a very good system).  I brought down my Empirical Audio modified S-7700 so we could both hear the differences between the EA and stock units.

Well, it took both of us all of 30 seconds to hear the big difference between the two units.  Now I paid around $200 for the S-7700 + $600 or so in mods.  Not only was the EA unit CLEARLY superior to the stock unit, I have compared it to dedicated transports costing anywhere from $1K to $4K from companies such as Auidomecca, Audio Note, Metronome, Sonic Frontiers, and others).  

My point is that Steve took a stock Sony DVD player and made it into a transport that was substantialy better than competitors costing significantly more than the EA unit.  

I am not proclaiming EA S-7700 the best transport ever built or the best transport for the money.  All I am pointing out is that a modifier can produce good products (and bad) just like a manufacturer.  While some want to get into the technical details, I don't.  Does it really matter how the unit got to the point where I enjoy it?  As long as the modifier isn't doing something that puts the piece in danger of breaking and stands behind their work, I am fine.

My only issues (as I previously stated) with going the mod route is resale value and the ability to audition.  Solve those before trying to validate technically why your product sounds better than it did in stock form!

George

[Carlman]

My only issues (as I previously stated) with going the mod route is resale value and the ability to audition. Solve those before trying to validate technically why your product sounds better than it did in stock form!

You mean, like... proper marketing? No way, dude, that's expensive.  I depend on word-of-mouth only.  That's the ONLY way to build your business...
-Sarcasmo

[zybar]

Not marketing necessarily.

For example, Steve at Empirical has an audition pack that he sends out.  You put down a deposit and you pay all shipping charges.

I know this isn't possible with big heavy items like Extreme Hurricanes   , but it could work with most items.

I am also willing to pay a little more to take some of the guessing out of the equation.  I know it costs money for inventory.

George

[Bill Baker]

Greetings Frank,
  I have been racking my brain trying to come up with the proper reply to your post. In all honesty, I do not believe there is any one "right" way to go about it so I will answer some of your general questions.

  This is not a defensive reply nor do I have any problems with the post. I have know of and heard about your work for some time now and can appreciate your concerns.

  Yes, the scope does play a large role in the final outcome of our modifications. I would not release a modification if I was unhappy with the results and I can assure you that during the process of choosing these upgardes, I have come across many bad "combinations" of internal passive components.

 All the components' leads (resistors, capacitors and input signal wiring) in every piece is kept as short as physically possible. Most of the products worked on, utilized circuit boards rather than the point-to-point signal path circuitry as you have seen in the ASL Hurricanes and these components are incorperated to the best ability allowed by the layout.

  You bring up an interesting point about matching components used within upgrades. We do this on a regular basis which is something most manufacturers do not even spend the time doing (in fact very few do). As far as resistors go, you mention changing them from thier "measured" value could do more harm than good. Our thoughts on this is that the resistors used in [most] affordable gear is so far off their "intended" value that going with pieces with much tighter tolerences IS actually a very good thing producing much better results. The resistors we use are within 1% of the vaules called for within the design. This is the reason why most of these products look much better on the scope after the upgrades.

If you inadvertently change all the parts values in a circuit, you certainly will change the sound, but not necessarily for the better.

 This is absolutely correct Frank. The same can be said about changing all the components within the circuit with the proper values but with parts that are [claimed] to be better quality. As you already know, just changing the quality of the parts does not make for a better sounding amplifier if all you are doing is randomly picking components based on what others say is the best. Sometimes the most unussual combinations produce the best results.

We would be much more comfortable with after market audio circuit improvers if they provided much more detail as to how they determine what the worse case problems in the designs they are working on are, and how they apply good electrical engineer techniques towards resolving those worse case problems

 To a point, I agree but I have provided this information in the past and the response I recieved back from the consumers was always very similar to zybar's statement below:

Does it really matter how the unit got to the point where I enjoy it? As long as the modifier isn't doing something that puts the piece in danger of breaking and stands behind their work, I am fine

  Many consumers found that we were trying to over explain ourselves and only trying to justified our actions. Since this information was removed, we have yet to recieve a single inquiry about how, what, why. These are things that we found a majority of consumers truly did not want to know. If they were happy with the product, they did not want to know how it came to it's status.
 
  Granted there will be those who will ask every technical question in the book. For those very few people, their questions are not ignored but rather answered on a personal basis. For those who know me here at the circle and throughout the audio community, they know I have nothing to hide.

JLM:

Why wouldn't a higher end vendor be in a position to do it right the first time? Granted a second set of ears can find ways to improve, but how much should the modder be able to viably improve a given product?

  This is an easy one to answer. It all comes down to bringing a product to market within a predetermined pricepoint.

.......a modifier can produce good products (and bad) just like a manufacturer

 This is true. The difference is that most modders and even DIY'ers will work much harder to make it right rather than just say "good enough".

  The products I work with, mostly Jolida, are good platforms with a lot of hidden potential. I have worked with these for many years to bring out this potential as much as possible.

  I have gone through several components and tossed MANY in the can that I did not like or that did not work well with a particular circuitry or desired signature sound I was after.

  There is no such animal as the perfect component or system and never will be. Ther are far too many variables that come into play with the most important being the consumer's personal preferences, taste and budget.