Building gear is like a chef cooking at creating in a kitchen. Different combinations of ingredients yield different results. When I build or mod tube gear I learned this first hand. Changing out wire, caps, resistors, diodes, layout, trannys etc... all influence the end sound. The art of it is choosing the ingredients (parts) that deliver the sound one desires. All gear has a flavor, no doubt about it. How the soup tastes, the gear sounds, is a net result of both the parts chosen and design/recipe. Use cheap spices, get a different result in the soup and in the gear.