I'm in the mood to make mods.

So glad to be of some help.

I'm totaly hooked on mods myself, nothing in my system is stock, or even near! You can do as you can afford it, you learn a lot and I agree, it is relaxing.
It also keeps the upgrade bug at bay because, if you choose something with a sound basic design (like VTL power amps), then you end up with a piece of gear better than anything you could afford off the shelf. The long chain of price markups sees to that.

Ever thought of building your own cables? I'm tinkering with Cardas coppies, 6 runs of fine cardas wire (3+ and 3- alternating) around a teflon tube, with another ring of teflon tubes outside of that, then flexible heatshrink, copper screening braid and then woven polyester expanding tubing to make it look pretty. Cheaper than the finished cardas - which I just can't afford as I have about 75 feet of interconnect alone in my system!
The construction is illustrated quite well on the cardas site.
Building this keeps me out of trouble for hours!!!

Enjoy the moding and take pride in a hi-fi that is very much your own.

If you consider cables this might be even more time consuming that anything else if you don't have proper tools and a doesen of soldering irons for different purpouses.
In addition to that you need to buy component materials.
I've ended up with VanDenHul D102H un-terminated bulk cable that is actually used in Type1 interconnects and terminated them with Neutrik Pro-Fi RCA plugs. Neutrik Pro-Fi have better conductivity and even firmer connection than Cardas or AudioQuest.

All of this stuff is time consuming and presents many challanges to be overcome!

The more I've done, the more ambitious I get.

I'm presently extending amplifier cases so the power supply I think is good enough can fit - its a 250W mosfet monoblock that is having a 600VA (3" x 8") torrodial transformer, with 2 x 10,000 uF of Nichicon Great Supply caps per rail - untill I can afford another 2 per rail plus a 2,200 uF directly onto each of the 6 output devices - per amp of course!

Said amp already has high speed bridges, caddocks, black gates (for voltage gain stage) and better regulators also for the voltage gain stage - not to forget lots of damping materials on the chasis that is already there!
Of course, the chassis extension will need damping materials added as funds allow.....

Oh yes, as is my want they are fed mains by XLO ref. power cord, home terminated.

See? Hours of work!

The tool selection slowly grows - absorbing less than 10% of the money I would have spent on top end gear. Now I want an oscilloscope and a signal generator, so I can fool round with designing tube stuff - just for "fun"!

You don't want to know:
1) How long it takes to build a 6 conductor interconnect.
2) The language it sometimes provokes.
3) The ammount of tea coffee and occasionaly (after an ooopsie) beer involved.
4) The funny crude jigs I use as the extra seven pairs of hands!

But at the end of the day, somehow I call it "fun" - even my friends think it is fun, or did they say "funny"? How come they pat me on the head and look sad?