Anybody have a problem buying modded units.


I was looking at a modded unit here on Audiogon, and i ultimately decided not to buy it. Firstly, the seller couldn't describe what the mods were and only said that "it blew me away", and secondly, a sense that they are hard to resll. What do people think?

David
deshapiro
I'd agree that modded units appeal to a much smaller group of buyers than stock equipment, and are therefore somewhat harder to re-sell. I can think of 4 factors that are relevant:

First, the mod invalidates the manufacturer's warranty (although the firm doing the mod may offer a warranty).

Second, all mods reflect, to a greater or lesser extent, the audio quality deemed "desirable" by the person doing the mod. This makes the mod a much more subjective process than sticking with a stock unit that sounds the same for the entire model line.

Third, some mods simply sound different, and not necessarily better, than the original unit.

Last is the question of whether the incremental improvement gained from a mod is worth the cost (which can often be quite high), or whether it simply makes sense to spend more money initially and get a much better piece of gear that is manufactured in large enough quantities to benefit from the cost savings of production runs.
IMHO I think I'd much rather put together a system as you have, by spending your money on high quality components in the first place than buy an inexpensive unit and have the passive parts upgraded.

I remain cynical, not so much about the final sound of some of the mod's where the modder has fully explained what they are doing and why, none of this mysterious crapola we sometime see, but as to the added value of the mod in dollars & cents compared to buying high quality in the first place, both sonically of resale wise. I'll pass.
therefore somewhat harder to re-sell
We recently sold our year-old modded player at a 10% loss. In some cases, as in ours, re-sale is quick (sold in less than 2 hours) and easy.
SdCampbell,obviously you have not own a good modded
cd player,they dont sound diferrent they are musical.
,I like my SonyModwrightDVP9000es than a DV50 Esoteric.
They also sell quickly like Boa2 said.
David probably the seller got too excited,or maybe
lost the paperwork of the player.I think you are not
sold with Mod,you did not tried enough.Why would you
need a mod? When you already have the Meitner, one of the
best.
Well, for a different perspective-I wouldn't buy anything but a modded unit anymore. You do need to do your homework.
:)