Modification that has proved to be transformative

in a manner well beyond swapping out gear, tweaks, wire and the like. Ok Agoners I have owned and gone through lots of great gear as evidenced by my feedback:-)

However, over the past year I have learned something I want to share. Some of you will know all about this and others will have heard about it, but with doubts. Three words....

Duelund CAST capacitors

Sure, I have cap rolled and part rolled for a few years now. Fun stuff to do and sometimes I liked the change and other times not so much. However these CAST capacitors are an entirely different animal. I placed them in my tube preamp, hybrid amp and speakers. In each component the improvement was dramatic and a game changer in many ways. Universally, each component was greatly improved by a percentage easily exceeding 25 -30%. I can't understand why gear retailing for $10,000 or much more would skimp on a crossover or coupling cap. My hybrid amp used $30-$50 caps that sounded good, but not great. Same thing in my speakers for the midrange crossover caps. The Duelund CAST caps made these high dollar pieces sound the best they are capable of.

I picked these up at Parts Connextion at a great sale price recently. They are very expensive caps, but made more affordable due to the recent sale.
I cannot overstate how superior these are to all other boutique type caps often talked about in audio threads. This, at least in my experience, has been the case in my cap rolling endeavors. I say confidently they will greatly improve any component they are used in. No need to debate about synergy and the builders tuning with parts etc...as these CAST caps are just going to make good and great sounding gear much greater!

So if you have gear utilizing coupling caps in key circuit positions this is an upgrade that will deliver far more then their high cost. Spend your thousands here before any wire change or buying and selling gear. If your gear is of very high quality and the key circuit caps are good, but not Duelund CAST, consider a cap upgrade.

I purchased two .47 uf caps for $398 and four .22 uf caps for $800. I used these in my tube pre and hybrid amp. This is easily the best $1200 I have spent in my 30 plus years in audio. As much as wire and certain tweaks do improve the sound, these caps did even more. Other highly touted caps did not garner quite this reaction from me in my system.

Now, these caps would have cost me double this if not on sale. However, they would still have qualified as a best buy in terms of their impact on my music.