Audio Research LS-7 LS7 upgrades suggestions

-Caps - 30% increase or just different but not better
-Diodes - 30% increase
-Fuse - 10% increase
-Damping chassis etc... 2 -5% increase
-New footers - 2 -5% increase
-Power cable - 5 - 10% increase
-Replacing Potentiometer with like a TKD or better than the basic Alps or nobel whatever it is in the unit can be a - 15% increase
-RCA's - depending on Resistance, if you go with a new gen WBT or something maybe a 2 - 5% increase

All this depends on how that unit reacts with the selection of new parts vs. another unit. Also how easy this unit is to work on, and how many values you can see or figure out on the parts to actually replace them.

Some are more effective in certain flavors, some are not. Tubes are easy, try them, but that's gonna cost you as much or worse drive you crazy buying NOS and not finding a happy spot!

Don't know if Diodes would be simplest, that is a pretty tedious and small component in the power supply to remove depending on how good you are with soldering and cleaning the board etc... I am not familiar with how difficult it will be in your unit specifically depending on the layout.

Fuse should be easy, anything else beyond that or Tubes that just plug in like the power cord, unless its a hard wire not an IEC will take an experienced Tech. or really good DIY solder guy.

Good luck

For 300 to 400 you can jam some nice caps in the critical spots and do some diodes, with fuse, new power cable, very easily… Probably can do it well under 200 if you are able to do it pretty easily yourself for sure, somebody might mod it for you with shipping for around 300 as well. I can tell you I had a LS7 I believe which was the tube based hybrid? And I had a LS3. The 7 was nice, I remember it being a little dry, maybe a bit thin depending on the amp and speaker match you run…

Definitely you could get better midrange bloom and BAss down low with some higher grade caps, I suggest the new Clarity ESA range which are very dynamic and warm, far better prices and sound over the big mundorfs etc…Clarity MR range could be even better, but very expensive, and get much larger in size. If you can make them fit, but remember they become far larger when you go to exotic caps over most manufacture stock sizes at an equal value. Jantzen Superior caps are great as well for very little money, better than the Relcaps, MIT, cardas, mundorf ranges for sure at the price levels.

That unit should have a ton of room in the AR chassis and I think its capacitor configuration is pretty simple and not many of them. If you want the most bang for the buck and can do it with a little good soldering that’s where I would start for the most effective mod, all the rest will fall behind for fun.