If you could do it all over again...

[cjfrbw]

I'm very happy with what I have, and it's been great in every iteration for a long time but I fuss with it and change things around anyway. It's part of the disease. If you have the disease, the only cure is that great audiophile paradise in the sky after you've scratched your last record or DAC'd your last bit.
My 'complicated' system is complicated because every time I tried to simplify it, it 'lost' something I craved.

 

[solderdude]

If I had to do it over again knowing what I know now and having a certain budget I am sure I could have saved a LOT of money which could have gone towards buying even better gear at once.
I think of it as a journey and being a hobby costs money, time, experimentation and experience.
The journey itself is half of the fun... I don't think it is upgraditis but rather a quest for good sound.

Budget and type of setup(s) as well as pride of ownership/looks would be a determining factor as well.

The funny thing is I would probably end up with something similar I have now that will be surpassed easily in the future.

Alas I can't give any advise here because of all the obvious reasons.

 

[Ceburaska]

Last year I advised a friend who wanted a turntable system to get
Technics 1200GR
Audio Technica MM cartridge
Arcam rPhono amp
KEF LS50W
That is a modern version of my phono system (old Sony direct drives), plus the convenience of active speakers (with a bit of dsp too). And easy Spotify connection to boot.
I love my Sony ES stuff, and Vivids, but would be pretty happy with the above system.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Things have changed a lot since the late 1960s when I built my first system, Garrard SL 75 chassis in a me-made plinth, Heathkit amp and Wharfedale 8” RS/DD speakers in grotty cabinets. Nobody in my family had any interest in Hi-Fi and this was a revelation after using the turntable and ceramic cartridge wired mono into the microphone input of my tape recorder with its little built in valve amp and elliptical speaker (I was already making my own recordings).
I upgraded stuff from time to time but hated evaluating kit, so in the ‘90s when I had the money I decided to listen to as many top maker’s speakers as I could and chose my “last” speakers. Final compare was Goldmund Epilog v B&W Nautilus.
If I had my time again I would build my music room with cables included for surround sound to tidy it up and give it a better trial.
If I had the money back and had to go passive I would certainly still use Devialet amps and maybe the same or similar Goldmund speakers, I have yet to hear any I prefer but haven’t been looking out for any.
If active I would try B&O Beolab 90s.
I would probably stick with physical media since what annoys me about all the streaming solutions I have tried so far has not been resolved and I am too lazy and irritable to sort it myself.
I would hopefully grow out of buying headphones - I almost never listen on headphones and have loads, can’t resist them.

 

[Ultrasonic]

Three big changes from when I first got into hifi about 20 years ago:

1) I'd now be starting with active rather than passive speakers, combined with an active sub.

2) I'd be including some means of parametric EQ for the bass region.

3) I wouldn't be be wasting silly amounts of money and time on 'fancy' cables, or other 'accessories' that claim to improve the sound.

 

[MRC01]

... At this point I have my new imperfect little corner in which to place a small system, for the limited time windows I will have to listen to it, but I'm as excited as ever.

That is the ideal situation for a headphone system. You can achieve a level of sound quality that costs far less than speakers, and you can enjoy it any time of day or night without disturbing the family.
In my experience, a full room speaker system can achieve a level of realism, resolution & naturalism not possible with headphones, but it requires taking over a medium to large size room and dedicating far more effort and money. Headphones give you 95% of that at 10% of the cost.

...
I love this stuff a bit more than might be sane, but I see I'm in good company.

Yep

 

[MattHooper]

Now is that good advice? I'm sure I'd be plenty happy and satisfied with that approach..............now. If I were someone just starting out, I don't know if that is good advice or not. I've seen people who bought well, bought once and lived very happily with their gear for 20 or 30 years. The other approach, the one I've lived is that you don't know what you want at first. Even if I ended up with exactly what someone with knowledge suggested to me I don't know if I'd have the confidence to be satisfied with it as much.

Good post!

I don't really have an answer for "what would I do if I did it all over again?"

I enjoyed the journey of discovering what I liked. I really did love owning electrostatics. It was owning box speakers that made me go "wow" upon hearing Quads for the first time. And it was owning electrostatics that made me go back to appreciating box/dynamic speakers again. I really have enjoyed owning box/dynamic speakers of various types. I love owning omnis. I love my floor standing speakers, and my small mini monitors.

I don't know that I'd have appreciated any one of these as a "buy it and stop there" purchase.

Whereas my father-in-law is an engineer and in to audio to the extent of wanting to listen to his classical music with good sound quality. He bought some big Monitor Audio speakers in the early 80's and...that was it. Never thought about changing them.

I'm not built like that. I love sound, can't help noticing the differences between speakers etc, and I like to experience different presentations.

Now beyond that if someone is smitten by the music/audiophile bug, I'd suggest go ahead and make the change to multi-channel. Don't go very far in gilding the stereo lily so much. It is mostly a waste of resources or if not a waste small returns.

I depart from you there.

I find it FAR easier to achieve a sense of "believable" coherence and presentation, 3 dimensional imaging etc, with stereo speakers than with multi-channel (and I have both). I had thrown my little Spendor S 3/5s up on stands, about 6 feet away, and within moments I was experiencing amazing "walls melting away" dimensional, spaciousness and a sense of immersion with a specificity and palpability to the sonic images.
Surround sound just doesn't add that much more, for me, in terms of a sense of immersion, and I generally find the 2 channel presentation more seamless and believable.

I think someone starting out can realize these qualities much easier, cheaper and faster with a pair of stereo speakers than jumping to the extra expense and effort needed to get a truly seamless surround system up and going.

There's a reason why multichannel music never really caught on.

 

[Daverz]

* I wouldn't have worried so much about getting that bottom octave of frequency response. I live in a second floor condo, and though we have sturdy floors and thick walls, a lot of that bottom octave energy is wasted and actually detracts from enjoyment, and there is very little if any musical information down that low (20-40 Hz).

* I'd have given stand-mount speakers more of a chance. I was intent on not making what I thought was a compromise.

* I wouldn't have made the detour into tubes, but I probably had to get that out of my system. A lot of money went down that rabbit hole, unfortunately. I still use my tube pre-amp, though.

* I would not have spent so much time and money on records and record playing equipment. I became somewhat obsessed with collecting records for much of the 2000s. To be honest, I collected a lot of junk. My turntable sits idle these days.

...Finally gave up on the tube pre for good: it messes up the soundstage.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I think someone starting out can realize these qualities much easier, cheaper and faster with a pair of stereo speakers than jumping to the extra expense and effort needed to get a truly seamless surround system up and going.

Maybe but this is not about starting out but starting all over again.

 

[MattHooper]

Maybe but this is not about starting out but starting all over again.

The context of the question "what would you do if you started over again" was that of a "newbie" seeking advice for starting out. Blumlein responded in that context, saying that he'd advise someone newly smitten by the music/audiophile bug to go to multi-channel. My reply was within that context.

 

[Zog]

In this and other threads I have often noticed posters making comments along the line of "if I was to start again today, I'd get an x and a y and call it a day..."

So, if you don't mind indulging a somewhat pointless question, I am wondering how you might complete that sentence yourself.

-mitch

I would (1) avoid the mistakes I made - eg Anthem 22 Amplifier, Project Phono Stage. A particularly annoying waste was an Origin Live tonearm. (2) More important is to keep to ONE source. I have spread myself too thin - two turntables (three actually, one not in use), Tuner, Disc Spinner, Custom PC & DAC. To get good sound from vinyl costs a lot of work and money. All that 'source' money could have gone into better speakers.

 

[BillG]

Active studio monitors - JBL, or Yamaha, with at least 8" woofers; Chromecast compatible streamer - the framework is hard to beat to terms of ease of use; PC for stationary server duties and local playback; Android smart device for remote control, and as a mobile server and player.

I could forgo the PC entirely for a NAS. However, I still have use for the desktop class processing and displays of a PC, and it would be multipurpose as I'm not dedicating one solely for audio - that's overkill as any DSP I'd use wouldn't be resource intensive...

 

[cjfrbw]

I'll answer this question after the next big earthquake.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I would (1) avoid the mistakes I made - eg Anthem 22 Amplifier, Project Phono Stage. A particularly annoying waste was an Origin Live tonearm. (2) More important is to keep to ONE source. I have spread myself too thin - two turntables (three actually, one not in use), Tuner, Disc Spinner, Custom PC & DAC. To get good sound from vinyl costs a lot of work and money. All that 'source' money could have gone into better speakers.

That is one of those differences of now vs then. I kept a RTR machine, TT, pre-amp, CD, and FM boxes for sources. Had a Nakamichi cassette too though it was for making tapes for the car mostly.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

The context of the question "what would you do if you started over again" was that of a "newbie" seeking advice for starting out.

I think we would offer different advice.

 

[LTig]

[..]
So, if you don't mind indulging a somewhat pointless question, I am wondering how you might complete that sentence yourself.

I actually would get the equivalent of what I have here (some parts are no longer available), which would be:

• Neumann KH310 (active 3-way speaker)
• Genelec 7360A (active subwoofer)
• Classè Sigma SSP MK2 (AV processor) - I would try to get a used one or a special offer because at 6000 € it is far out of my price range. The one I have I got for a third of its recommended price . If I don't find one I would try to live with a HDMI switch and an SPDIF switch and use the RME (see below) as DAC and preamp.
• Tascam CDRW900 MK2 (CD player/recorder). I don't need a recorder any longer, but a simple player offers much fewer controls, and it's not expensive at all.
• Pioneer UDP-LX500 bluray player
• Linn LP12 Lingo with VdH MC-One Special. I have too many vinyl to not need a turntable.
• Rebuild my DIY MC phono preamp, this time with a subsonic filter though, and maybe balanced outputs (to please @amirm )

I would not get a tape deck again. Still have an Akai GX 75 MK2 but it's used once every 2 or 3 years - playing a cassette to find out how bad it actually is, especially dynamics.
I would not get an FM tuner again, a simple satellite TV box works perfect.

For my second system I would again get the RME ADI-2 PRO fs, but probably replace the current Genelec 8020A by Neumann KH80DSP.

If money is no limit, my dream system would probably differ a little bit:

• Grimm Audio Ls1Be with LS1s-dmf subwoofer (I auditioned them on Highend 2019 in Munich - best show of all I've been to)
• Trinnov Altitude 16 AV processor

 

[MattHooper]

I think we would offer different advice.

That's cool.

If someone has just become bitten by the audio bug, what is an example of a system would you advise him to purchase?

 

[Sal1950]

Since my current system is only a few years old now since I assembled it, not much I would really change, I like what I put together. But then I have near 5 decades of experience.
So for me and I would imagine most others here, the question would then be, what would you have with a unlimited budget or at least one much larger than your current.
Another limiting factor is the listening room and what it will accomidate. That's a whole other issue also closely interwoven with budget. LOL

 

[Sal1950]

The context of the question "what would you do if you started over again" was that of a "newbie" seeking advice for starting out. Blumlein responded in that context, saying that he'd advise someone newly smitten by the music/audiophile bug to go to multi-channel. My reply was within that context.

If the person I was advising didn't have too restricted a budget I would always suggest going multich. It offers so much more in flexibility. With a multich rig you can always turn off any of those features and run in a pure stereo stereo mode if that is your desire. But a stereo rig can never play back a discrete 5 channel music recording, or upsample a stereo recording, or envelope you in the latest 5.1 film soundtrack.
The only restriction of a multich rig is the additional cost.

 

[Midwest Blade]

I was pretty well set at the end of the 80's, the turntable was pretty much shelved, I was busy buying cd's of most of my favorite albums after resisting longer than I should have. Regret giving away a set of Accoustic Research M1 bookshelf speakers and trading off a pair of IMF Electronics ALS 30's, second regret was diving in with home theater which pushed my main system into storage for to many years. The only good thing coming out of my home theater years was two sets of very good Danish bookshelf speakers from System-Audio, one set currently gets the bulk of my listening duty.

Rather than put my main speakers (Quad ESL-57's) into storage while I moved around in the corporate world, I think I should have sold them off or traded for a more portable system, the ESL's are still working great but it took me over 25 years to finally have a room that they can really work their best. Tidal has injected some new life in my pursuit of music and is opening up a lot of new avenues.

Remember buying my first set of Monster Cable speaker wire and a set of Nordost around 2001 which I seem to remember costing around $200 which was really crazy back then (still have them today, I wonder how they would really measure up).

Wow...do it again...today...TIDAL, CD Player, Integrated Amplifier w/streaming connection, good pair of bookshelf or small towers from PSB or Revel or other reputable brand and finally all cabling from Blue Jeans.