It has been amazingly busy here lately, for which I am so grateful to everyone who participates. It's gotta be the nicest bunch of people on a forum anywhere. You guys deserve the credit for that.
With the increased amount of activity I'm seeing a lot of posts about modifying our kits. Go for it - we have always supported experimentation. But I must admit I am a little taken aback by the lack of rigor in the mods and experiments. To wit, you cannot possibly know if cap A is better than cap B if you only installed and listened to cap A! Likewise, you can't assume that we can tell you that the cap you found that is a screaming deal is blessed by us if we haven't tried it. Shoot, ask the cap dealer to send me a pair. I'll try them and if I like them he will probably sell a shit ton.
The comment that I see often - "well, I know I should build it stock but I only want to do it once with this other part"... dude! Take some responsibility! If no one else has tried it, build the thing stock, swap in the part, and let us know if it works or if it sucks! You will rise in the ranks here quickly. We're talking about a few minutes of diddling with a soldering iron.
We've been doing this a while. We do believe that parts changes make a difference. We also believe that thoughtful circuit design trumps boutique parts changes (note I did not say "upgrades"). And sometimes we choose parts because they're the best sounding part we could find for the job. An example would be the new BeeQuiet attenuator for the BeePre. We did some homework on that one. Find something that sounds better in that circuit than we supply and I will be all ears.
Also, please put the whole system in perspective. If you are using an iPhone for your source and the system is shoved in the corner of your room that has one wall of floor to ceiling windows and the left speaker is in the broom closet, ferchrissakes, don't buy $1500 of capacitors for your Quickie, set the system up right with a cheap music server and get some room treatment. Always keep the return for the investment in mind. I've seen guys win best of sound at an audio show by hanging a couple of cheap Ikea rugs on the side walls to make their hotel room work better than the guy next door with $250K worth of cables and bare walls.
OK, rant over. The enthusiasm these days is awesome. Keep trying things and learning, that's what it's all about. And please help move the whole community forward by sharing your thorough explorations of your mods!