Do You Regret Your Pre-ASR Audio Gear Choices of the past?

[coonmanx]

Honestly, the only thing I really regret buying was the NAD 7140 receiver. It cost a lot and didn't perform that well. It was alright and the soft clipping feature was nice and might have saved a pair of speakers when my young son decided to turn the volume all the way up and then hit the power button. But the build quality was just not that good. It has been replaced with an MCS 3842 now.

 

[Gitfiddle]

Fortunately my expensive (relative to my income level) audio purchase have mainly been instruments, so no. No regrets there. They have either gone up in price or gone up in sentimental value.

 

[Midwest Blade]

Yep - sure did make some regretful purchases but have to admit...had some fun along the way.

 

[Greenman]

No regrets at all really. I’ve bought my turntable while I was at uni. After uni once I got some decent cash I upgraded all my amps and speakers and finally CD player. I’ve now used this system near unchanged (accept the odd replacement cartridge, and my final CD player upgrade 10 years later) for 35 years. It has worked flawlessly, sounds fantastic over 20+ hours weekly use for 35 years so nothing to complain about at all. System is Linn/Naim

 

[Roland68]

In fact, I don't regret any of my purchases before ASR. I wouldn't have bought anything else with ASR either.
I always listened to everything very carefully before buying, comparing and sometimes even blindly comparing. This also led to my first real speaker being a high-quality DIY kit with SEAS drivers (circa 1988) along with a Proton amplifier and Sony CD player. Many of my purchases over the last 35 years have been confirmed by ASR, e.g. NAD 2200.

Today it is much easier to make a pre-selection with ASR, both through Amir's and user tests, as well as through user experiences.
However, the final decision is always my own listening test/comparison.

 

[notinuse]

Not really. Although I did try a Monster Cable once, in the '80s. It was a composite video cable, with "special" RCA plugs and "mysterious" coaxial cable. It was sold as in kit form, or preassembled. I bought the kit for about $17 and soldered it up at home. I also bought a two-pack of RCA connectors from Radio Shack for $0.49, and had some left over Belden RG-59 cable. The cable was maybe a dime per foot, I don't remember exactly. I soldered that combination of parts, and compared with the Monster Cable. Couldn't see any difference in the video quality between the $17 Monster Cable and the ~$1 Radio Shack/RG-59 patch cable.

The next time I visited the audio shop that sold the Monster Cable, I told the owner about my experiment. When I told him I didn't see any difference between the cables, he asked me what kind of solder I used. When I told him I used Kester 60/40 rosin core, he said I should have used silver solder. That's why I didn't see an improvement. I decided that Monster Cable was pitching woo. That was the first and last one I bought.

 

[MattHooper]

Not really. Although I did try a Monster Cable once, in the '80s. It was a composite video cable, with "special" RCA plugs and "mysterious" coaxial cable. It was sold as in kit form, or preassembled. I bought the kit for about $17 and soldered it up at home. I also bought a two-pack of RCA connectors from Radio Shack for $0.49, and had some left over Belden RG-59 cable. The cable was maybe a dime per foot, I don't remember exactly. I soldered that combination of parts, and compared with the Monster Cable. Couldn't see any difference in the video quality between the $17 Monster Cable and the ~$1 Radio Shack/RG-59 patch cable.

The next time I visited the audio shop that sold the Monster Cable, I told the owner about my experiment. When I told him I didn't see any difference between the cables, he asked me what kind of solder I used. When I told him I used Kester 60/40 rosin core, he said I should have used silver solder. That's why I didn't see an improvement. I decided that Monster Cable was pitching woo. That was the first and last one I bought.

Like I mentioned, I wasn’t into the whole cable thing. Nonetheless, I’ve had a number of quite high priced cables in my system on and off over the years. The reason is that I knew various audiophiles and reviewers who had selections of those cables, and if I needed a pair of speaker, cables, or intakes or whatever I could usually get a free pair from them. Castoffs, or a loan or whatever.

Not long ago when I put an extra preamp in my system. I need a few more interconnects.
A friend loans me interconnects he had - some balanced cables that were something like five or $6000 for the pair. Very highly reviewed and places like the absolute sound I think. In any case, when he needed them back I just replaced them with $40 Audioblast cables from Amazon (similar to Mogami), and of course, I heard no difference.

(admittedly when I first put the new cheaper cables in it sort of “felt like” maybe the sound had changed, but the more I listened I realized there is no actual difference I could detect, as expected. I was really just dealing with a mild bias effect where you change something in your system and naturally your brain decides “ something changed”)

 

[Oddball]

Don't regret any of the major gear purchases I made before more thoroughly understanding the key technical points. I guess I was lucky with more expensive purchases or budget was limited (in the early days).

Cables are a different thing. For whatever reason I really love(d) the cable thingy. Never went extreme but did go overboard at times. I think it was more for the look and feel of the expensive cables than expectation of performance. All of the Van Den Hull cables I bought for a pretty penny are still functional after 15 years, albeit don't look so good anymore. Time takes the jewellery effect from the cables for sure. My amps from the same vintages looking like brand new though.

 

[dimedrol]

I regret most of my audio purchases. The first speakers I don't regret buying were Dynaudio bookshelves that I have to this day, after which I switched to studio monitors and never once looked back. Studio monitors + room correction. Can't go wrong with those. Not a week goes by that I don't catch myself thinking of how good (tight, clean, punchy, dynamic, you name it) a random song on the radio sounds and that I have never known it could sound this good. All thanks to the studio monitors. If anything happens to my monitors I will just go and buy another pair of the same manufacturer. Won't even bother for a listening session, like I used to in the hi-fi era when I listened to a lot and still ended up buying something that sounded bad in my room/with my rig.

 

[whereisbrian]

I bought a lot of sometimes esoteric equipment, especially English hi-fi, and also because I had a collector's mentality. My closets and rooms were full. Then I started meditating 10 years ago and cleared out and sold everything.

Saying this, I feel like I'm at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting

 

[Pareto Pragmatic]

Pre-measurement, I just got something and set it up according to good placement principles, maybe toned lows and highs a db, and then ignored it. That was nice in a lot of ways. No regrets there.

I never spent a lot until recently, super cheap price points, and I still use most everything I have. Sure some "lesser" stuff is in the basement or my office, but it's fine. So no regrets on that at all.

So my time on ASR has not led to any regrets. But it likely saved me regrets in buying my "good" system in many ways, financially and otherwise.

 

[MattHooper]

I regret most of my audio purchases. The first speakers I don't regret buying were Dynaudio bookshelves that I have to this day, after which I switched to studio monitors and never once looked back. Studio monitors + room correction. Can't go wrong with those. Not a week goes by that I don't catch myself thinking of how good (tight, clean, punchy, dynamic, you name it) a random song on the radio sounds and that I have never known it could sound this good. All thanks to the studio monitors.

This brings up the interesting question of how much are we looking back on our previous experience has to do with being enamoured with our current gear.

By that I mean, lots of us have been into this hobby for a long time and I’ve had different systems over the years. And generally, the reason we bought those systems had to do with being impressed with the sound and usually (at least for a period) being quite happy with it.

So the question becomes whether we can separate the quality of our subjective experiences from the more objective quality of the gear we might be using.

In other words: Does the fact we think our current gear is “ better” in someway than our older systems mean that we weren’t having really involving compelling experiences with the old stuff as well?

I absolutely swoon over the sound of my current system, and I sometimes find myself thinking “ this is the best sound I’ve heard in my room.”

But for one thing, I think there could be some recency bias operating there.

And the other thing is that the fact I am so happy with my current system doesn’t mean I wasn’t incredibly happy with the many different systems (usually different speakers) in the past.

Going all the way back to the 90s when I started off with Quad ESL 63s, I was just ecstatic with the sound and the musical experiences I was having back then.
And that was generally the case with every single new system or speaker I owned.

I frankly don’t think it’s possible in terms of subjective experience to leapfrog to some new level of joy, amazement and musical pleasure than I’ve had in the past.
My tastes have evolved somewhat over time and my current system reflects that, but in the big picture it’s more “ different” than “ better” and my overall engagement with listening to music on my system isn’t necessarily any greater than it has been in the past. (maybe it’s a little bit greater, the way my current system just seems to push all my buttons, but I’m talking big picture).

 

[Barrelhouse Solly]

Not really. When I became interested in audio when I was in high school, the first thing I did was go to the library. I took out hi-fi books. I was a geeky kid so measurements always interested me. Things like what to do with the sound coming from the back of the speaker fascinated me. My dad was a consummate cheapskate so I got accustomed to looking for the cheapest solution I could afford. It took me 6 months to save up for a baseball glove when I was in grade school. I loved ASR immediately because the reviews consisted mostly of measurements with a short subjective opinion at the end. I've always known that there was better gear than mine. often lots better, but I was always pretty confident that what I had was as good as I could afford. I've always wished I could afford better though.

 

[dimedrol]

In other words: Does the fact we think our current gear is “ better” in someway than our older systems mean that we weren’t having really involving compelling experiences with the old stuff as well?

I absolutely swoon over the sound of my current system, and I sometimes find myself thinking “ this is the best sound I’ve heard in my room.”

But for one thing, I think there could be some recency bias operating there.

Well, from my experience, prior to the Dynaudio's I mentioned, none of my systems were versatile. Some things sounded on them great, others - horrible. I remember how I loved listening to Norah Jones on my ProAc's back in 2004, to date no other speaker of mine could make her debut album Come Away With Me sound that wonderfully holographic. My Heco floorstanders hooked me on drum'n'bass. I used to assess speakers by how good my favorite music of the time sounded on them but that was a genuinely bad approach resulting in anything but versatility. These days however, versatility or, in other words, linearity, absence of coloration, intentional or otherwise is what I go for. Any attempt to deviate from linearity to make something sound nicer seems to always lead to something else sounding so much worse. Studio monitors fit the bill perfectly.

 

[DSJR]

I took some wrong turns over the years, but learning from these helped me no end ultimately.

 

[DVinylfan]

Absolutely not. My ASR journey of hifi component discovery isn't tainted by regret.
It's illuminated by wonder at all the SOTA pocket money priced components now available.
If I've erred by purchasing Audiophool accoutrements in the past i'll happily recover my costs by selling them on the used market to mugs less outré than I

 

[SteveC]

No regrets. It's been a fun ride, but I did step off the audio escalator 7-8 years ago. The only change since then has been to replace some really nice Spendors with a pair of KEF R3's that were a better fit (i.e smaller) for the listening room I was using at the time.

 

[RalphB]

It was all a journey. I definitely look back in disbelief at the marketing BS I bought into. In the end, I can make better decisions based on what I learned.

 

[tmtomh]

I think this is an interesting thread topic - thanks @MattHooper!

Like many others, I don't have any regrets, for three reasons:

1. I didn't have a lot of money to spend on the hobby;
2. I never bought in to most of the silly audiophile claims; and
3. The unsupported claims of audiophiles and reviewers that I did take seriously, I applied to bargain or value-priced gear because of item #1.

Looking back knowing what I know now, I can say that I bought gear that did not necessarily perform better than other gear I could have purchased for the same price. But because I wasn't spending a lot of money, even with my current ASR-enhanced understanding, I can say that all that gear was good value for the money, and if ASR were around and testing gear in the 1990s and early 2000s, the stuff I owned then might not have gotten the Golfing Panther, but it would likely have gotten the next one down and definitely would've avoided the Shrugging Panther or Piggybank Panther.

The one other factor that makes me not have any regrets is that the gear that I might very well not have bought had I known better all happened to be equipment that held its value very well. I won't go into all the details, but over the years I bought an Oppo BDP-105, Oppo UDP-205, and vintage Marantz 2230 receiver for a combined total of about $2300 (including the cost to pay a tech to repair and refurbish the Marantz). The Oppos had fantastic functionality; the 205 in particular was a stellar performer objectively; and the 2230 was a lot of fun to have around. I sold them at various times to different people, for a combined total of about $1000 more than I paid, and I had nothing but enjoyment from them when I owned and used them. So I feel quite fortunate.

I got into hi-fi because of my father, who came of age in the mid 1950s and bought his first real hi-fi gear right around 1960 when the industry was still dominated by engineers and the amount of audiophile BS was minimal. Over the course of his life he did try a couple of nonsense tweaks - he bought those "directional" Monster Cable interconnects in the 1980s, and at some point in the 1990s or early 2000s he got cable-lifters to keep his speaker cables off the floor (although knowing him that was probably mostly about neatness and he figured if they happened to make a sonic difference that would just be a nice bonus). But in general he was very skeptical of the BS and had disdain for esoteric, boutique high-end stuff. So he passed that along to me, which helped me avoid expensive cables, AC cords, crystals, and all the other egregious nonsense.

 

[MattHooper]

I never bought in to most of the silly audiophile claims; and

Yeah, that’s where I think I saved a lot of regrets too.

I won't go into all the details, but over the years I bought an Oppo BDP-105, Oppo UDP-205, and vintage Marantz 2230 receiver for a combined total of about $2300 (including the cost to pay a tech to repair and refurbish the Marantz). The Oppos had fantastic functionality; the 205 in particular was a stellar performer objectively; and the 2230 was a lot of fun to have around. I sold them at various times to different people, for a combined total of about $3300.

I have had an OPPO UDP-203 4K Ultra HD player pretty much sitting in its box since 2016 !!

I got it because my JVC projector is 4K capable, but the problem is it would take rewiring some cables through my walls and basement floors and all that to update to 4K/UHD capable HDMI cabling. And since it’s a really long run that puts extra strains on the cable. And for years people, I’ve been having trouble with cable run, so I’ve been waiting for things to shake out. The whole idea just became such a hassle I kept putting it off. In the meantime, I even bought a Lumagen pro radio processor that will help process HDR for my projector, but even that has unused for quite a while because I’ve not gotten to the cabling yet. (discretionary spending to go towards audio stuff).

Anyway, I know that having folded the OPPO 4K players are highly coveted for various reasons in the Home Theatre world. But I’m amazed how the price keeps going up and up.

I just took a look, and these things are now going from between $2000-$6000 dollars on the market!

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