Hi,
I do all my own mods and make some of my own boards(former technician, now engineer).
The Von Schweikert VR4 Gen IIs are the first update of his original VR4s. I've owned them for around 10 years.
As for the two CDPs/preamps, the Counterpoint pre was my previous (and I just put it up for sale). I replaced it with the Pass Aleph P. The Rotel 855 was my original CDP; I had always liked it, but thought there was more performance to be had in the output stage particularly, but also the clocking. The 991 came up for sale a couple of years ago at a good price. Current mods are the replacement of the factory NE5534s (I/V stage) and the OPA2604s (buffer/SE-balanced conversion) with THS4031 and AD8599 respectively. These are not drop ins, particularly the THS4031, but required extensive bypassing with 100uf FMs right on the power pins, etc. It sounds much better now, but the 855 is still slightly better. I am going to build and implement a discrete I/V stage; will probably retain the AD8599s for the buffer/balanced conversion portion, but may try transformers here. I'm still in the decision phase :)
Thanks for the kind comments.
