I am in the process of buying an older Alpha 7, and am also interested in upgrades. According to Charlie Krone of Arcam's US distributor, Audiophile Systems Ltd., CharlieK@aslgroup.com, they have to special order the Alpha 9 upgrades from Arcam in the UK, they cost $900 for the upgrade when they're available, and there aren't any available at the moment. He told me, though, that they do have some upgrades to the Alpha 8 available for $450. There is an interesting suggestion at http://www.musicalapproach.co.uk/news/arcamcd82.htm that owners of Alpha 7 and 7SE can upgrade using the DAC board from Arcam's current DiVA CD82 CD player, but I don't have any confirmation or pricing on that from ASL. If you're interested in other possible mods for an Arcam 7 or 7SE, take a look at http://www.geocities.com/godism7/HIFImods.html , which lists details including some part numbers, plus photos, for a series of mods done to an Arcam 7 a few years ago. Several of those look as though they would apply to the 7SE as well as to the 7, including replacement RCA sockets, fuses, vibration damping of the CD transport, and an internal cabling upgrade. There is also a recommendation for a capacitor upgrade where you would have to check the parts compatibility to make sure that the parts hadn't changed from the 7 to 7SE models. If you find anybody willing to perform such mods on a 7 or 7SE, please let me know.
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