Last month I had Wayne perform the "inlet only" mod on my JVC F-10 receiver. This consists primarily of replacing the stock AC cord with an IEC input and some rewiring of the connection from that to the power supply. While he had the unit open, Wayne did some rerouting of fan shroud material, which, when I got the unit back, lowered the temperature noticeably (and measurably --- around 12 degree F. on the outside of the cover).
The mod doesn't include an AC cord, although there's a discount on a Bolder cord available at the same time as the mod. I had an idle Virtual Dynamics Power Three cord and that's what I've used with the F-10 since it came back. The power for the receiver (and nothing else) comes through a Oneac 4.5 amp isolation transformer plugged into a cryoed upgrade power outlet. Oneac and power cord both had at least 500 hours before use with F-10.
The F-10 had at least 350 hours on it before being sent in and had at least another 60 hours after return with mods.
My system is very modest:
Speakers: Gallo Acoustics Solo's (last, aluminum ball version). These are 4-ohm speakers but otherwise easy to drive and are fairly efficient (around 90 dB/w).
Source: Sony NS500V SACD/DVD player modded by sacdmods.com; powered via cryoed upgrade cord from a Monster 2000 power conditioner; on Herbie's Tenderfoot footers. Two brass Mapleshade weights with Herbie's Mini-Dots on top.
Speaker Cable: Analysis Plus Oval 12.
Interconnect: Homegrown Audio Silver Lace.
F-10 sits on 6 of Herbies Baby Booties and I'm using Bolder's binding post adapters to connect the spring connectors to spades on the speaker cables.
All externally-accessible connections (including power) are treated with Mapleshade Silclear.
All discs listened to were treated with Mapleshade MikroSmooth and Auric Illuminator (all SACD's with latest version). All were played with a Herbie's Grungebuster on them (as before the mod).
To my ears, this inexpensive mod improved significantly all the things the F-10 does well. My speakers trail off at around 30 Hz at the low end but are tight and tuneful. They have become even more so and slightly more extended with the mods and upgrade power cord. Their high end goes on forever and is pretty much imperturbable. They've always imaged well, but they're better still now, and on decent recordings, high frequency details are both incredibly detailed and very smooth. The midrange is nice too. To take one tiny example, some of the audience dialog is comprehensible in the SACD of Bill Evans' "Waltz for Debby" --- it was not before --- yet I don't find it at all difficult to listen through to the music, which is more there and more natural to my ears than ever before.
Most good recordings are noticeably more dynamic, with a quieter background and more oomph at the other end of the amplitude spectrum. One thing that I noticed about the JVC before the mod that seems even clearer now is that I enjoy listening at lower levels than before, while losing nothing at all at louder playing levels. It's like there's life at low levels that used to need louder ones before.
I also brought the modded F-10 over to a friend's on Thanksgiving Day and we had it on from early afternoon until maybe 9 p.m. He has a ModWright-modded Pioneer 563A normally running into an Audio Alchemy DLC preamp with PS-2 power supply and a Hafler 9108 amp. His speakers are Aperion 522's with their SW-10 subwoofer. Much better acoustics than my place. We listened to a lot of jazz and a fair bit of other stuff, mostly classical. The JVC did very well there too, with both added detail and more extended bass over his usual setup. His speakers don't have the extreme high end that my Gallos do but the subwoofer does go down cleanly and loud to about 25 Hz.
