I'll be looking much more closely at stuff when I go to garage sales from now on.
Also "trash day" where people pile up stuff - since you are taking it apart for the buttons and dials - broken stuff is great. I have not tried to take apart the newer or low quality stuff - I would imagine the older and/or higher quality stuff you find - the better (why trash day is so great).
One question though, how the heck did you get the lights to be white?
I use LEDs with the correct resistors and controller chips built in (chips are LPD6803 and WS2801). So just setting R/G and B to full color does the trick.
I did often get blueish or redish faded white when working with raw LEDs and resistors. I found some LEDs I would purchase would be a little cyan colored and others would be pinkish - using the same resistors. So I think the color spectrums of the R/G/B (mostly R I think) may vary some from LED batch and/or brand .. also if the type of resistors being used is close but not exact then you may see some stronger color.