The Price of Tweak

[Fast Forward]

Simple enough Question,,you just scored that R2R, Cassette,Turntable,etc you,ve been dreaming about,and it sounds great,,but maybe with a few Mods you can really make it sing ,,what limits do you set if any

[Nakdoc]

I have heard stories of people asking for revox mods (replacing all solder with silver solder 2% Ag) and the current comments about Tandberg cap changes. In the Nakamichi world orange cap replacement is more a necessity than an upgrade. A person in England has a drop-in UPD4066 replacement with impressively low distortion. The 4066 is common in many decks in the audio path.
For the most part though, decks benefit most by having a proper alignment done. From my perspective as a servicer any good sounding reel benefits from alignment, and from proper tape choices. I see so many trying to push late 60s/70's decks to use Ampex 456, when no amount of bias acrobatics can give flat frequency response. If I wanted to recommend mods I would support record eq mods for the newer Japanese decks with tape/eq switches.

[Scorpion8]

.... ,,what limits do you set if any

Pocket change. If I can fix something up with a few caps or just new belts... I'm all about that. If it requires two parts decks for sacrifice, complete and total electronic realignment and mechanical alignment, finding a replacement path for some totally unobtanium transistor..... Nah, there's too much other gear out there unless this piece happens to be my "grail" piece.

[Fast Forward]

Ok I,m not a Tech guy so lets say whatever your working on needs caps,transistors etc ,,if NOS will get it up and runinng for X amount of dollars would you spend more money to put in some super Cap or transistor to make it better even ,,