I guess this is kinda off mark with the thread, but being fairly new (and I know this has probably been discussed many times before) I have mixed emotions about the whole Oade line. I mean I talked to him and I know he's a nice and knowledgable man. I also know that he deserves mega-credit for supporting this community for as long as he has, but the whole exclusivity thing with buying from him only is pretty bothersome to me. I know it's his prerogative to run his business as he wishes, and I suppose he probably has enough business that he doesn't need to service any more than the units he sells. But to my way of thinking, if the community supported people like Busman more and more such that there was enough business go away from Oade, then maybe he'd change his policies back to being more open...maybe Busman or others would have enough business to also provide the level of detailed support that Oade does.
I guess it's no big deal. He sells quality upgrades and you get what you pay for, so in the end it's no biggie because he definitely also provides value with what he sells. I just wish it wasn't so exclusive to the units he sells.
For me though, his policy caused me to decide to go with the busman mod and buy a third party 660 rather than buy a modded one from Oade. Call it my own form of boycotting. Course, I'm sure that and a dime gets me a cup of coffee! Ha!
Glad I saw this one. Let me try and explain how I see the Oade policy on only modding gear purchased from him.
First and foremost the very second that any modder opens up a unit and starts replacing anything the manufacturer warranty is voided. The Grace V3's may be the exception with Doug only though. So as soon as Doug cracks the 660 open he and his business are 100% on the line for that unit. Even if he doesn't replace chips at all and just tinkers he and his business have effectively cut out the manufacturer. So in that sense what he is doing is covering his ass from a business standpoint. Say you buy a 660 from Acme Taper Co., it develops a quirk. You send it to Doug to mod and he sends it back with his mods. You then in turn say to Doug, "Well Doug my unit has a quirk now, fix it" well then he's possibly on the hook to fix a problem that should have been fixed under the manufacturer's warranty
before Doug even touched the box.
The fact that Busman offers to mod units that were not bought from him or Cascade is a hell of a deal. But I bet that once someone takes advantage of that policy (see quirk example above) that that business practice stops. Obviously Busman's partnership with Cascade put Frank on the line with regards to problems of which several have been documented on this site. If Busman decides to quit the mod business or end his deal with Frank then Frank is still on the line for the units sold through him.
So both business owners are taking great financial risk by offering mods that void the warranty.
I think that the one misconception people have about Doug and Chris' mods is that they are the same mods. They ARE NOT. Both guys use different chips and have different methods for obtaining different results. A Busman "T" mod is very different from the Oade "T" mod.
Personally I do not think that the Busman mods are anywhere near as sonically positive (is that even a correct phrase?) as the Oade mods. Doug does his mods by ear NOT by chip number. It speaks volumes to me that when people talk about some of the best sounding tapes that Doug has had his hand in most of them. The Busman mods not so much. Maybe because he is new to the game, maybe not.
I noticed that when busman started selling the modded 660, Oade came up with the "song catcher mod" 660. They are almost identical in price. Could it be that Oade needed something cheaper than the ACM to compete with the busman mod? When asked about the quality difference between the ACM vs the SCM he said "they are very close but it does use different chips." Who knows....
I can't imagine that Doug feels any pressure (financially or sonically) by the Busman mods. Doug however has started moving his audio business more towards the modding business and that's why I would suspect he is now offering mods at all price points.
Quite frequently lately people have PM'd me about my thoughts on the Oade mods vs. Busman mods. My standard plagiarized answer is "trust your ears". If people made their decision on gear by what they heard instead of what an internet description is then again I find things to be a no brainer on who to choose. I think too many people will buy modded gear just because someone is fluffing it and not because of what they hear. Everyone has different gear. Talk to Doug to see what mods he recommends for YOUR particular gear.
