Resistor Kit - Quality?

Also interested in a good electrolytic/film capacitor assortment pack for audio path.

Here it's better to be a lot more specific in terms of what values you need, and what kind of quality you're after. There are a ton of different options available, European, American, Japanese... I like Elna Silmic II elko's and Ero/Vishay MKT1813 film capacitors for signal path.

Once you've found the capacitors that work for you, I'd do the same as for resistors, and buy the values you need to build your own kit.

Never saw this thread, but the cheap chinese resistors are probably fine. The "thin" leads are still generally much higher current carrying conductors than the metal/carbon film the resistors are made from.. I mean, I've never seen one burn the leads off before the resistor element burns up before..

I've taken to just buying whatever is on sale at Newark for caps. They tend to have good deals on random film and ceramic caps from time to time, so I usually stock up on whatever they have available for cheap. I used to care about the "sound" of the caps, but eventually realized that it makes such little difference in practice, that I don't even pay attention to the materials anymore. If it's small enough value I use a film cap. If the value needed is too high to be practical in film caps, I use an electrolytic. Never had an issue with doing it like this with audio gear and honestly it's completely overblown by folks on the internet.

I understand your concern, but from a practical standpoint, can you tell me how they're "bad"?  If it fits, solders and works, can it still be "bad"?   The leads on 1/8W resistors are generally the thinness of the chinese leads on 1/4W resistors, so do the thinner leads on 1/8W resistors cause significant difference?

I ask because I'd like your insight into why you think this.

Maybe after all these years designing and building electronics, I've become too jaded, but I've rarely seen much difference in outcome in most designs that have used a wide range of parts from all over the planet.  

And yes, there might be some small differences in caps, but I've found that most of the differences are a wash when all other considerations are taken into account.   I stepped out of the tone chasing game years ago when a lot of forums ended up with pissing-match threads over cap sounds that went more like:

Person A:  "BOLD COMMENT ABOUT A CERTAIN CAP SOUND WITH POORLY DONE A/B COMPARISON TRACKS"
Person B:  "I don't hear the difference"
Person A:  "There is a difference because I spent a lot of money on this and I hear a difference!"
Person B:  "But I don't hear it"
Person A:  "You don't know what to listen for"
Person B:  "Ok, but shouldn't it be obvious if it made any significant difference?"
Person A:  "you'd hear it if you had golden ears, but clearly you do not"


And it would generally devolve beyond that point with folks wanking their egos and such.  I also spent thousands doing cap and opamp upgrades to various things over the course of a decade, and honestly it never really made things better, I just got further away from a known point of reference and at some point I lost my sense of what was "good" sound and always wondered why I could never achieve the sound I imagined in my head..

Turns out that it was just my lack of skill and worrying about the type of caps in a piece of gear was just a way for me to avoid the obvious realization that my skills lacked.    Once I stopped worrying about the parts in my gear and started worrying about how to use the gear correctly everything I did got a lot better.