Interesting point Jeff and one I am sure a lot of people have. A number of people say the same things about cables, power cords, and other audio tweeks. I even draw the line at some of the tweeks, as I do not see a way to benefit from them. I have had a number of pieces modded, and a lot of times to equipment I was perfectly happy with at the time. It is all about the music and the sound and trying to improve that at a reasonable cost. If cost is not an object we would not be buying Outlaws and others anyway, we would be spending $50,000 for some exotic amplifier that only 200 people in the world will ever own. Some of my mods have made significant improvements for very little cost. A case in point is converting a Tube amp to operate in Triode. Definite improvement to my Quicksilvers and I was not looking for anything extra out of them. Also cheap, just a few minutes and some soldering. Second time around I decided I wanted a switch to go back and forth on my Sonic Frontiers. A little more time and effort but worth it. A $100 change to my Quad ESL 63s by replacing some capacitors and resisters to upgrades was stunning. I had to get a friend to help me with that. You are right in one respect, if you are completely happy with it and don't even want to think about an improvement then leave it stock. If you are thinking about trading it in however as something is missing to you, a mod may save you money and improve that piece of equipment beyond what a stock unit is capable. "Snake oil", I disagree. I was in manufacturing my entire life. There are always short cuts to the process of making a unit in any business. You have to do this to keep the cost of the unit to a point where it will compete. Secondly you have to have your cost at a point where you can sell it at a price people will pay. You try to do that and put out a product that is good quality. AN exra $10 in parts that I add to the unit at home taken to the manufacturing side would probably increase the sales price by a $100 or more. Does that make the stock unit a bad product. NO!! It makes it a good mid fi product priced accordingly. If you go into that unit and replace the lower cost parts with higer quality ones that make a definite improvement in the sound is that "snake oil". Not in my opinion. My personal opinion having been in this hobby of over 30 years is that it is a logical course to consider. Mark my words you don't have to do it, just something to investigate and consider weighing all the positives and negatives. I made improvements to a $5000 pair of speakers that everyone raved about. Yet when I got inside I was surprised at the low quality of some of the parts. As I have said small changes led to major improvements. That was not snake oil, and it was cheaper than sellng the speakers and buying new ones. If (and that is an if), I decided to go that route, I would weigh all the options first. I am in the process of doing that now with another piece of equipment. Mod it or sell it and buy a few steps up the ladder. With this paticular piece I have decided to sell. Modding is not always the answer and it is not for everyone. But in my opinion you can always improve the typical stock maufactured equipment, be that cars, hifi, TVs or anything else you use everyday. And it does not make it all snake oil or a bad thing. Just a choice, sometimes an intelligent one. But if you cannot do the work or at least check on the work being done and if you do not know at least by reputation the people doing it then it may be a bad mistake. In this case I would not hesitate if I wanted to do it. In others I would.

[This message has been edited by OFCCM (edited June 06, 2003).]