Top resistors

I haven't done any experimentation myself, but, I know people, including small manufacturers of ultra high quality components, who say there is no such thing as a best or top resistor, capacitor, or any such component. I asked one why he worried about a certain "cheap" resistor becoming unavailable, and he said that he had tried many others, such as Vishay 102Cs, and for his circuit, in his opinion, they sounded dry and analytical. I heard the same from another small manufacturer.

It would be much easier if there were such a thing as a clear upgrade path, but, that is not the case. I heard an "upgraded" version of an amp I am familiar with that sounded shockingly bad compared to the original. It turned out that the upgrade consisted of just parts substitutions of Black Gate caps for the cheaper caps the manufacturer used. In this particular application, the Black Gates were NOT appropriate.

I haven't done any resistor rolling myself, but, I once spoke to the designer/builder of amps and preamps who did not like the S102 for his designs. He found the resulting sound to be lean and seemingly stripped of harmonics. He was quite clear that the right parts in any design has nothing to do with cost, reputation, or any kind of judgment of intrinsic quality--it is a matter of specific voicing. For the same reason, he liked a particular conductive plastic Alps potentiometer that he could no longer easily find even though he could easily replace it with much more expensive alternatives and pass along the cost (he builds quite high end designs); he said he would gladly pay much more for that "cheap" part which was no longer being made.

My local dealer builds custom speakers.  He is currently working on a pair of crossovers for me.  It is taking some time to get the very specific parts he uses in his top-end crossovers, particularly the  very old and HUGE caps.  With my crossovers, he is having a hard time getting the specific vintage wire-wound resistors that he wants.  As with all vintage parts, one often has to cull through many to find ones that perform according to specifications.