LSA Voyager GAN Amplifier

I suspect the words "bright and brilliant" can easily be equated to harsh and sibilant....so I think it would be worthwhile for those of you that actually play instruments to spill a little more ink explaining what you mean.

When I hear unamplified instruments being played up close (I don't play), I think of what I'm hearing in terms of present, dynamic and powerful...and almost always at a level that I've never heard on a home audio system.

“The LSA amp is so good, I can’t wait to get it modded”. That tells me it isn’t that good because if it was, why void your warranty to make it better? I would never mod anything.  If I got the itch, I would buy something better and I certainly wouldn’t mod a brand new piece of equipment.  I will stick with my big and heavy Mac amp, it sounds great and have no desire to ever mod it. 

@stereo5 I modded my LSA Voyager because of my experience with the SONY SCD-1. There are a lot of reviews on the Vaccum State mods that I also did on the SONY. The SONY had great bones, a 60 pound SACD player with SONY's best efforts 20 years ago. It cost $5K then but likely $10K-$20K for a smaller company to do the same level of work. In short the mods transformed the unit from great (lot of reviews on this unmodded player) to one that I will never sell, a masterpiece. Even today it is still one of my best digital sources. It is much better than stock and actually some stock features are removed or disabled.

Since you guys are all talking about musicians I will add that a musician who recently heard my SONY wanted to buy it. He could not believe how good it was with SACD's. He owns a lot of DACs and other gear.

So mods are not something I will dismiss because you can buy something better for more money.

I am not dismissing mods but if the item is so great, why does it need to be modded, especially during the warranty period?  I had the SCD777ES which was the same as the SCD1 without the balanced output and potted transformer @$3500.00.  It’s now a boat anchor and could never compete with my Esoteric X3 SACD player. 

Mods to digital vs. mods to something like an amp or preamp are a bit different.  Years back back I had a tube mod to a Sony XA-777ES.  I still have a solid state modded Oppo BDP-83 (which is just there if someone brings a disc over as I'm not into disc playback at this point).  Other than minor mods, I can't ever foresee getting either a digital or video thing modded again. For one thing, the draw mechanism and transport is usually only manufactured for a limited period.  Once that passes, the manufacturer is not going to retrofit new parts in and write new software for it.  As far as not modding during the warranty period, that is a safe practice to follow.