I drive mine without an amp/DAC, and they sound great to me. I've had some people vigorously tell me that I need a DAC, though.  With regards to custom/non-custom, I ran non-custom for 4ish years, and they were good, but customs are a lot more convenient. Perfect seal every time, no need to...

Probably important to note that it's silver nugget, not silver glitter. Glitter would look quite a bit different, I think.

Effect Audio Crystal. I tend to break cables, so I don't spend a whole lot on them. I've found Effect's cables build quality to be excellent.

I selected gold nugget, but requested silver nugget as a part of the confirmation process (sunny emails you to confirm the design choices before they start). Hopefully they can do the same for you. If not, I think it would look great with gold nugget too.

Cheers! It is a personal design, yeah. Cocobolo faceplates, dark smoke/silver nugget body, amber/gold nugget canals. If I did it again I would ask if it's possible to get Australian Mallee Burl faceplates instead (they hadn't made any with that wood when I ordered mine). 

My K10s arrived today:         I'm really happy with them. Here's the playlist I've been using to get into them. It's a wide spectrum of Jazz, Metal, Bluegrass and Pop. In particular Johanna Kurkela's "Sinä nukut siina" really shines on them, as well as Tesseract's "Resist"...

Well, mine are finished. Now I just need to wait for them to arrive. Just like the K7XX and Kona Process I've ordered. I'm feeling poor for the start of February, hopefully there'll be lots of shiny new things by the end! I really like how they turned out. Looked like there was one other person...

http://effectaudio.com/product/crystal/   These are the best I've found for a reasonable price. The build quality is really good.   Edit: totally read that date wrong! Thought it was posted today :)

Thanks for the tip! Just picked one up.

Yep. That's me. My impressions were received on the 17th. So I should have a week or so to go. Soon, soon...

Are there any shots of the cocobolo faceplate in the wild? I'd love to see what it looks like.

Me too man, me too. I'm in a constant state of edge-of-my-seat-ness. It doesn't help that my SM3's cable gave out a few weeks ago either, so I've got to live with Carbo Tenores until the K10s arrive...

Hey now, don't tease us like that without posting the pictures!

More photos please!

Well, not all of it.     There's some really great bluegrass out there if you take the time to find it :)