You get to do it all over again.

Lemme see -

1) Learn how to properly set up a turntable a couple of decades before it happened.
2) Learn a whole lot more about actually working on things myself, ie. understand circuits better, become truly competent with a soldering iron. I'd never have become a DIY guy, but being able to do basic things myself and a more "hands-on" approach to troubleshooting would have been interesting.
3) That I'd had more funds available sooner to put into good gear. I don't regret many of the purchases I've made, but that many of them were of necessity financial stepping-stones to what I really would have liked in the first place. As a means to an end it has been a good path, but it makes everything take longer than I'd prefer. Ah well, at least I've learned the virtue of patience.
4) That I'd owned an absolutely killer big system back in the mid-80s when I had my huge downtown loft instead of a 25w/ch integrated and a pair of EPI M50s. If they hadn't torn the building down I'd still be living there, no doubt of that.
 
2) Learn a whole lot more about actually working on things myself, ie. understand circuits better, become truly competent with a soldering iron. I'd never have become a DIY guy, but being able to do basic things myself and a more "hands-on" approach to troubleshooting would have been interesting.
On this one, I'd be the complete opposite. I wish I'd have admitted to myself earlier that I don't really enjoy DIY or working on electronic things myself at all...which was a large part towards moving to newer things that just generally worked better, and finding competent techs to repair/mod what needed some attention.

There's a tendency in this hobby to assume everybody has or should have a desire for DIY on some level. I'm comfortable saying...I don't. I'll fix mechanical things if I can. Electronics is a world that, while I greatly appreciate the skills others have, I don't find any joy in it myself...and I don't want my hobby to feel like a chore to me anymore. To those that love, though... I think its awesome.
 
Hindsight.........Could one really appreciate a piece of gear of higher quality without having compared it to lesser quality ones before? If you started with Harbeth HL5’s would you be chasing something better?
 
Hindsight.........Could one really appreciate a piece of gear of higher quality without having compared it to lesser quality ones before? If you started with Harbeth HL5’s would you be chasing something better?

This.
 
Hindsight.........Could one really appreciate a piece of gear of higher quality without having compared it to lesser quality ones before? If you started with Harbeth HL5’s would you be chasing something better?
Point taken, but I wish I had listened to more stuff before spending so much time in one area of the pool. Once I got out of that place, it was a pretty quick trip to where I've been happy. I floundered in well over a dozen systems of fairly level performance, and only had maybe 3 steps to here after trying something else.
 
... but I wish I had listened to more stuff before spending so much time in one area of the pool ...

This is where I would be. I don't "regret" the journey - I learned a lot - but wish that I had not been so focused on the all-vintage-is-good dogma for so long and branched out to greener pastures sooner.
 
This is where I would be. I don't "regret" the journey - I learned a lot - but wish that I had not been so focused on the all-vintage-is-good dogma for so long and branched out to greener pastures sooner.
Same. I don't regret the journey so much as I do the money I spent. And I can't say all of it was a journey, as in, moving in a particular direction towards something. A lot of it, I was just addicted to it all and hoarding stuff (much of which I still have...good stuff, just....yikes, too much of it).

I know I have enough gear just sitting around that it would pay for most of Harbeth 40.2s if I could get what I spent out of it...but that would be a huge chore and unlikely.
 
It's funny in that I realize over about 30 years, with an insane amount of gear changes for about 15 years, I arrived not too far from where I started. In 1990 I bought my first decent stereo system which consisted of a small British integrated amp, a small pair of British monitors and a decent CD player. I used it for 10 years before the gear swapping bug kicked in. The best of my final stereo systems as of now consists of a small British amplifier, small British monitors and a sonos connect streamer. It was a minor upgrade in components but not huge. If I look at it that way it looks like a waste of 15 years. But I think sometimes it takes that kind of futility to realize that it doesn't take a huge outlay of cash to have enjoyable music if we can ignore that voice in our head constantly saying " this sounds Great, I wonder what will sound better".
 
On this one, I'd be the complete opposite. I wish I'd have admitted to myself earlier that I don't really enjoy DIY or working on electronic things myself at all...which was a large part towards moving to newer things that just generally worked better, and finding competent techs to repair/mod what needed some attention.

There's a tendency in this hobby to assume everybody has or should have a desire for DIY on some level. I'm comfortable saying...I don't. I'll fix mechanical things if I can. Electronics is a world that, while I greatly appreciate the skills others have, I don't find any joy in it myself...and I don't want my hobby to feel like a chore to me anymore. To those that love, though... I think its awesome.
I never said I actually want to fix or even build anything, rather to have a much better understanding of how things work and some basic skills. Same goes for me with my two other big passions - violins and cameras. Only when it comes to pianos have I felt a need to really get into the nitty gritty of not only how they work, but also to restore them myself. Then again, that is more like rescuing strays from being euthanized....
 
To quote Stevie Nicks in the song I was just listening to, "Baby I don't wanna know....ow".


Took me awhile but I'm finally remembering that I got into this hobby to hear the music I loved in a better light, not to run a shelter for abandoned, needy, and neglected old sound making devices.
 
I think where I am at variance from many on forum is in how long some pieces have remained in my main system. I'm still using the same power amp I bought over 30 years ago, I've had my pre-amp for at least 15 years. That which has needed to change, has. That which has served me well has remained.

I do wonder how things might have gone differently if I'd had a bunch of money to through into the game, though.
 
I think where I am at variance from many on forum is in how long some pieces have remained in my main system. I'm still using the same power amp I bought over 30 years ago, I've had my pre-amp for at least 15 years. That which has needed to change, has. That which has served me well has remained.

I do wonder how things might have gone differently if I'd had a bunch of money to through into the game, though.

Same here. Loving classical music (and its huge range of styles and periods, not to mention the very prolific geniuses around!), I had to put my money in expanding my music collection rather than changing my audio setup, which was just decent but the same for more than 20 years. Now I´m happy I did that, as I could afford later better hardware but with the advantage of having got the wonderful music collection that is my daily joy, not only for me, but also for friends and relatives that keep discovering unkown music to them at my home.
 
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Took me awhile but I'm finally remembering that I got into this hobby to hear the music I loved in a better light, not to run a shelter for abandoned, needy, and neglected old sound making devices.

I resemble that remark.

DSC_7312 (2).JPG


(photo taken minutes ago... killin' some time waitin' for the debate to start)
 
I have that same Samsung DVD player around. I even did a transport swap on it with an identical unit I found at the thrift. This was really before I got into audio. It was decent and when I bought it new it was at least not the cheapest one.
 
I knew Tweeter well -- my Quad ESL-57s belonged to a one-time Tweeter VP, who sold them to his head of custom installations, who sat on 'em for years, and ultimately sold 'em to me. :)
 
I knew Tweeter well -- my Quad ESL-57s belonged to a one-time Tweeter VP, who sold them to his head of custom installations, who sat on 'em for years, and ultimately sold 'em to me. :)
Funny. My Dahquist DQ-30s had come from the manager of a United Audio (?) which became Tweeter. The cast-offs of the big dogs.
 
It would be a mental change for me - realize where the true value lies. In the past I was good at finding bargains, but not real value. I think that has somewhat reversed for me now. What I'm listening to right now is a hodge-podge of gear that was/wasn't a great bargain, but I think has incredible value.

great distinction b/w bargain and value
 
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