Modifications that don't work

[Dave Hewitt]

Hi All
Has anybody made any modifications to their system or components that have made matters worse?I know I have in the past.I'll start by mentioning the time I changed the coupling caps in my valve preamp from the cheap Chinese type originally fitted to copper Obligatos,these took all the drive and dynamics from the sound and I ended up with apre to send you to sleep.Also threw the Chineseinput valves out of my Liang amp in favour of expensive American ones only to find they were a lot worse.
Regards Dave.

[DSJR]

Changing some lovely sounding walnut 'briks from August 1984 for some black ash ones from mid 1985 which sounded awful... KEF had made "unavoidable changes" to the B110 mid driver and the 'brik, kan and LS3/5A were terminally afflicted.....

Changing a good working Linn LK1 for a hugely inferior LK280.

I also remember Jimmy Hughes buying a Koetsu Onix cheap from Ab Sounds 'cos it had been kerbed and lost its diamond. Jimmy sent the cartridge to VDH who made a truly wonderful cartridge out of it. Some while later, Jimmy returned the cartridge to Koetsu to be converted into an SE or somesuch and the yruined it, the returned cartridge totally lacking the magic it had before...

I've never really been into modding, but the stuff I've passed on tha tI should have kept is a rather lengthy one...

[Mike]

Changing a good working Linn LK1 for a hugely inferior LK280.

No you didn't!

[swampy]

Hi All
Has anybody made any modifications to their system or components that have made matters worse?

Sure... quite often

[Kris]

I remember the time years ago when I tried to improve my mains plugs and mains leads. Everything was plugged into normal flying extension sockets, then ultimately, into one 13 amp plug into the wall.

It made sense to buy the biggest three pole connector block I could find and wire everything into that, with one 13 amp cable going to the wall socket. Direct connection as it were, no intermediate plugs, no extension sockets.

To my absolute shock, the sound quality was significantly impaired. Very significantly impaired. So I put back all the plugs and extension leads, and hey presto, sound quality returned.

To this day, I still don't understand why it impaired the sound . . .

[DSJR]

No you didn't!

An LK1 [edit - LK2.......... ahem....] *with the proper heatsink plate* was a reliable and good (at the time) little amp. The LK280 was a dreadful design where any distortion (crossover or otherwise) in the input stage was amplified through the circuit to the output. Even after six months powered 24/7, the thing sounded grainy, dead and squeezed as in "toothpaste tube." The Spark supply only made this worse IMO.

[Mike]

An LK1 *with the proper heatsink plate* was a reliable and good (at the time) little amp. The LK280 was a dreadful design where any distortion (crossover or otherwise) in the input stage was amplified through the circuit to the output. Even after six months powered 24/7, the thing sounded grainy, dead and squeezed as in "toothpaste tube." The Spark supply only made this worse IMO.

Interesting!

What with the LK1 being a pre-amp and the LK280 being a power amp! No wonder it didn't work out so well!

I'm guessing you meant to say "LK2"?

I quite liked my old LK280 & Spark... The LK1 & Dirak was pants though!

[DSJR]

OH FUGG!!!!!!!

Smarty pants

Linn went right off the boil IMO with their amp designs. The Intek and siblings was another grainy joke and the early Klout wasn't much better. The later Klout was much "free-er" as I remember from the late demo units we had.

[hifi_dave]

I'm not much into mods unless you count those Peter Belt jokes, none of which worked for me.

One of my customers did a VERY expensive mod when he tried a fancy mains cable on his Levinson/Proceed/Revel system. It went something like this as I recall - The system was run from a bank of MK sockets on the wall behind the system. These were on a nice fat spur but also run separately was another double socket which we found out later had a dodgy earth connection. So, most of the system was on the spur but he plugged the spare lead into the dodgy socket and used it to power the pre-amp. Cut a long story short, there was an almighty spark and bang and the whole lot blew up.....

Fortunately, I wasn't there but the next day I checked it all out and everything except his Notts Dais and EAR phono stage were most unwell and that included the Revel speakers which melted when the power-amp went DC. The whole lot went to the distributor for repair but it was all beyond that with so many chips 'fried'....

The insurance company paid out within seven days, can you believe and sent the cheque for replacement equipment direct to me as the dealer. Now, as I recall, the cheque was for almost £50K which made for a good week's takings...

So I say - I lurve modifications.....