Modified equipment...

Leave it stock. While they're may be a plethora of great mods out there, if you intend to resell later, trying to explain the mods to someone unfamiliar with them is imho a pretty big turn off. Individual components are voiced to work as an system, or they ought to be, that's why you're dealing with a professional designer in the first place, right?
In the same vein, manufacturers who tout their great sounding components and then simultaneously offer an upgrade package including the parts that REALLY make it sound great are kinda goofy too. Yeah I know they're trying to hit their price points, but what they really accomplish is making their "unimproved" models instantly obsolete.
As a final note, it used to be a comfort to see any manufacturer who offered just one model preamp, power amp, etc. Ostensibly this was the best he wanted to offer the public. Integrity of purpose and integrity of design, if these things are important to you, don't fix it if its not broken.

I've modified my Rega RB300 tonearm with Incognito kit spending additional $400. Original arm price is $425.
Result:
1. I can only sell this arm for $400(+-) loosing more than half of my investment(basically mods only giving arm free)
2. It's still Rega arm that doesn't give you desirable high end adjustment options. It will be still Rega even if you will thread through SME tonearm wires or any other high performance wires.
3. The imaging had been greatly improved compared to the original arm but value had been decreased.

So what's the alternative?
Sell original Rega arm for $200~225 and get used SME309 for ~$800(there are bunch of excellent arms in that range becides SME) which is price of modified Rega with all adjustment options, greater performance and certainly better value.

In any other cases such as modyfying already engineered components through the company that did not manufacture them wasn't realy a value increase or a good investment.

Am I dumb after all?
-- Yes I am, but that's the audiogon forums are here for to let us fellows tell how dumb we are!

The moral is B4 mods think about aquiring a better component to compare the final values. ...sort of playing chess where you have to think 5-10 moves ahead.

Cheers, Mara

We make it a policy not to accept non factory modified gear.
NIGHTMARES $.

I don't think you can make one general rule.

I think that a lot of people shy from modified gear because of uncertainty about the gear. Big Companies do not spend all that advertising $$$ creating brand recognition for nothing. The sad part of this is that most of the time advertisisng is a greater cost than parts for the piece. I do not know of any studies but I believe that a modification will cause most folks to shy away and therefore limit ( not necesarily fatal) your secondary market. Just a hunch.

That being said I would not shy away from any modifieid gear if I know who did the work and can talk to them. I like to tweak myself and I think the best values are in tweaked equipment if you know what you are looking for. Just improving the caps to your crossovers to your tweeters, for example, will do wonders. You can't believe the junk that is used in very expensive stuff (7-10k range). Far more important than interconnects or wire from my listening.. at a fraction of the cost. Same is true with amps too.

I really do not agee w/ rock virgo re designers. Companies are under big pressure to cut costs and they do just that. They spend huge amounts on ads convincing us otherwise. The designers are under the bean counter's thumb. I do agree with him that a lot folks will shy away from what they do not really understand and not buy modified unless they know you.

I do not have trouble selling an occasional modified piece locally because people know me. I do not think I would want to have to sell lots of modified stuff though.

If you want to keep a piece and know the modifier - buy it. I have heard old tweaked Dynaco ST70s (that's right- the 40 year old junk coming through Audigon for 250-$400) that will compare with most anything new at 10-20 times the price. You have to put a few hundred into it of course.

Nice thing is you get something unique too!

Just an opinion.

Get the mod only if you want it. I have some gear modified by Stan Warren who is very popular on this site. If I ever sell this stuff it will probably only sell well to a person looking for stuff modded by Stan.

Manufacturers use components they can get in large enough quantities to meet estimated demand, and to meet the price point they want to set. This means it is not necessarily the best parts in sound quality. The time it takes to put the unit together also matters in the design, so a better design may be passed over to save labor cost. The modifier only needs to find parts for your unit.