Yep, if you're diy'ing you can build a component for the cost of its parts plus some sweat equity, but if you're building to sell to others through mainstream retail channels the final price will be at least five times or more the cost of the parts. All that extra money is necessary to cover office and plant overhead, labor costs (benefits, soc sec, unemployment ins, workers comp), product liabilty insurance, taxes, advertising, distribution costs, and of course the retailer's markup. Many are horrified by the amout of markup for high end audio components, but it's more understandable to someone who has owned a business that sells relatively low volumes of a premium product.And now, back on topic: When I first played the Onix with the stock op amps the center image dominated the sound. Sounds from the right and left of center were subdued and lacked any front-to-back placement. The ambient sounds that give clues to location were almost entirely absent. With the upgrade op amps, after one night of playing on repeat, I'm finding the center image is subdued and the sound is tilted toward the right and left. But this time I'm going to hold off from judging the sound until the thing has had at least 50 more hours of breakin time. This is the first time I have bought a new source component and listened carefully to the soundstage imaging, and it's amazing how it changes with breakin time.
The stock op amps are not soldered, just plugged into sockets on the player's main circuit board. The upgrade op amps are soldered to their adapter boards, but the adapter boards just plug into the same sockets on the circuit board. Proper orientation on the adapter boards and the player's circuit board is indicated on each board and on the op amps. Since it's just plug-in change, I believe I reinstall the stock op amps after the new ones have broken in and do a comparison. I'll post my findings.
If anyone is intersested, the op amps are from USA Caps' Ebay store at http://stores.ebay.com/USA-Caps-Inc_Op-Amps_W0QQcolZ2QQdirZ1QQftidZ1QQtZkm
The adpters are part number 021001 at http://cimarrontechnology.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=5
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