gear mods

In my opinion, half or more of them don't work as well as they're claimed. For every person that claims they hear a difference, there's another that says they don't.

If not everyone can hear the difference, and the difference is not so obvious that everyone can hear it, is it really worth trying to make an example of?

If the mods were as obvious as the marketing claims, there would be obvious examples posted everywhere on their sites.

The best thing about being a modder is that folks automatically think you know something they don't. You then get to claim that you have golden ears and that anyone who doesn't hear a difference doesn't know what they're listening for or can't hear it.. which reinforces the golden ear'd expert mythos.. to which I saw again, if a regular Joe can't hear it, is it really doing anything special?

I agree 100% with what svart said. I would open up this conversation wider and say... I think it’s easy to sell almost anything in the pro audio gear industry when you can get away with only using words: A technical description, laced with buzzwords that feed our desire such as “warm, gooey, sheen, smooth, buttery, immaculate, crunchy, silky, punchy, hairy, etc.”

Back on the topic of mods:

For what it’s worth, a few years ago I purchased a vintage DBX 118 that was modded by Revive Audio. It’s wonderfully pure sounding and has a fantastic dbx attitude to it (oops — there I go with buzzwords again — ha). I don’t imagine selling it. I had a chance to compare it to an unmodded yet fully functional and “minty” (in appearance) DBX 118, and that unit had a similar sound and action to it, only it was much noisier. It was probably passable for some users but i really heard a difference between modded and unmodded in that case.

I'm probably more guilty than anyone else at trying mods over the years.

Almost all mods I've done eventually got reverted back to stock unless it was fixing a design flaw, which I consider different than "modding" anyway.

Honestly, I struggle to remember any mods I did that I've retained for any particular reason besides something like building a C12 out of an apex460.. but that wasn't really to improve the 460, the 460 just served as a donor for body and parts.

I totally fell for the notion that a few parts changes could catapult my sound beyond that of my peers.

I was wrong, and I spent years focusing on the gear mods instead of learning the skills better and I regret the tailspin it put me in.

I also feel bad for all the folks I see doing the same things I was doing, but just like me, they ignore the wisdom of the ones who've been through it while they forge ahead believing they'll be the ones who game the system with cheap gear and shortcuts to award winning mixes.

Forget the mods. Focus on the mixes. Nobody hears the mods or the gear, they hear the mix.

Define “mod”.....I think that’s part of the problem, it’s less specific than it should be, kind of like ad copy. Someone mentioned ad copy that’s a mix of tech description and buzz words....I honestly don’t see much ad copy that makes any technical sense at all, usually obvious errors and mistruths at best.

svart agreed. The sound of the gear is often a holistic thing. They are often voiced around the sound of particular parts in the circuit such as the DBX and LA whatever power supplies, TL071 or NE5532 distortion, the DBX VCA modulation distortion, Burr Brown opamp sound, etc. swapping these out for “better” alternatives often ruins what is good or interesting about something.

Then there is gear that get much more usable with mods without real changing the sound too much like Jim William’s Adcom mods mainly just clean up the low end, just outright buying a better power supply for certain pieces, swapping out busted junk caps for more reliable parts in plate amps and mass produced cheap modern gear, but these aren’t really mods more than overcoming the cost reductions of the designs to make the gear more usable and reliable.

Agreed with most of what's said here about mod hype. The best mod I ever did was replacing the entire input section of an ART VLA with some Stancor transformers. It's still a VLA, but without the cheap crunch on the front end and measurably better frequency response.

And since I'm a transformer psycho, I also replaced the input section on a A/D converter with transformers with fabulous and measurable results.

Good choice.  

I forgot modding the cheap ribbons. Definitely worth it.

Mods made a lot more sense 10-15 years ago when cheap gear sucked more and good gear was a lot more expensive. I had a Motu 2408 mkii modded by black lion audio, it was a “holy shit” experience. But now even a cheapo $200 interface sounds miles better than those old converters.

A while back I thought about having Shannon mod my Miktek Cv4. Then I got a ADK tc-67 for like $600 and it was so much better than the miktek it was why spend the money? Sold the Miktek and made money on that deal.

Not saying that some gear wouldn’t benefit from mods, or that they don’t have their place. But it’s getting harder and harder to justify the costs of modding most gear.

interesting to hear a few define mod and upgrade as different things.

i've had some good outcomes getting gear modded. the jolly mics definitely sounded better. some of my own tinkering has also sounded better. upgrading parts in gain circuits or pre gain has seemed to make a difference.

but. surely the companies doing the mods are testing their mods. take black lion as an example. i can't find any test data to back up their mods. just words. revive are the same. whilst i'm one of those that feels differences can be made why are they not validating their differences.

A few years back I had BLA do their signature mod on a Digi 003r and it was a noticeable difference. I replaced that with an RME UFX and haven't thought about it since. I did do the lundahl transformer swap on a few Apex 205's and it was pretty significant, I'd do that again.

Most accordingly.
Chris