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What did we regret in our audio life.

watchnerd

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What did we regret in our audio life?

About 2007, not buying a brand new Nagra T,

View attachment 106483

…still in its delivery packaging, from a professional post house who had ordered and paid for it before realising that such analogue kit had no future within that business. They wanted £300 for it. I had just moved at the time, and cash flow was a bit of an issue…


300 quid...

The Fates are laughing at you...."watch this....we're going to give this sucker an opportunity that will haunt him decades later..."
 

Matias

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Not buying large enough Genelecs in the first place. The upgrade path from model to model upwards was expensive and unnecessary :)
Good to know. I was aiming for some Genelecs, I guess I should not save on their smaller models and go too the larger ones first.
 

threni

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oivavoi

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Major regret: Selling the Philharmonitor speakers (first original version) by @Dennis Murphy some years ago. Amazing, amazing speakers. They were the first proper hifi speakers I bought, so I didn't know how they compared with others. They had powerful bass, and in the small room I had at the time I had to place them near corners, so it became a bit boomy on bass-heavy tracks. I was all new to hifi and audio back then, and had absolutely no idea about anything. Had a demanding job, so I didn't want to give the technical side of things any thought, and just thought that the guys in the hifi store knew what they were doing. So I went to a hifi store and asked them what I could do about the boominess problem. "Try with new cables which tone down the bass", they said. "Ok", said I. Paid a lot of money and took the new cables home. But even though I had spent a lot of money on these supposedly fancy cables, it was not enough to convince my ears that it actually made a difference.

So, I sold the speakers, and attempted with other speakers in the same room. Had I only known what I was missing out on...! and that I could easily have solved the boominess with a simple touch of eq, or perhaps with moving the speakers! On a positive note, though, I became so very annoyed when I found out I had been duped about the cables that I started to read up on the technical side of audio, and then one thing led to another.
 
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Pluto

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The Fates are laughing at you...."watch this....we're going to give this sucker an opportunity that will haunt him decades later..."
Yes, incredible, ain't it. I still occasionally cry a little tear over that one.

We went through a period – 2005-2010, give or take, when the worth of analogue kit in professional circles took a real tumble not only on account of it being ‘old tech’ but also the amount of space it took up; there was a lot of pressure on real estate and many urban businesses (especially those in the London post production area, Soho) would do anything to reduce their physical footprint.

The only kit (of which I'm aware) that was largely exempt from this phenomenon were good quality analogue multitrack machines, and that's because the manufacturers (of which there were only ever a handful) saw the writing on the wall sooner than most, and the laws of supply and demand kept the prices high.
 

ENG

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I regret that I didn't know of ASR when I bought gear I regret now. And ASR was in the air! I stumbled upon ASR via a norwegian tread about Hegel.
 

LTig

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We went through a period – 2005-2010, give or take, when the worth of analogue kit in professional circles took a real tumble not only on account of it being ‘old tech’ but also the amount of space it took up; there was a lot of pressure on real estate and many urban businesses (especially those in the London post production area, Soho) would do anything to reduce their physical footprint.
This is similar to camera optics. With the uprising of digital cams many analog cameras lost their value which also often involved excellent lenses they came with. But due to young people discovering analog film prices rise again, and especially with mirrorless digital system cams came cheap adapters for obsolete lenses which raised their prices significantly.
 

Phorize

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Just remembered, giving away my stax Quattro 2 to a complete stranger for free, just to make space. It needed a new transformer or four, and they would have needed to be hand built by the stax engineers as they didn’t have off the shelf parts, but still.
 

Robin L

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Just remembered, giving away my stax Quattro 2 to a complete stranger for free, just to make space. It needed a new transformer or four, and they would have needed to be hand built by the stax engineers as they didn’t have off the shelf parts, but still.
I don't mind not having Stax 'earspeakers' anymore. I got migraines about once a month when they were my daily driver.
 

Phorize

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I don't mind not having Stax 'earspeakers' anymore. I got migraines about once a month when they were my daily driver.
Migraines? The Quattro nearly gave me a fucking hernia!;)
 

Robin L

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Migraines? The Quattro nearly gave me a fucking hernia!;)
I don't regret losing any of my "CD Players", 'cept maybe the Oppo universal DVD player that was good for two years, set me back $30. That was a good spinner for surround sound [except Blu-Ray, which I guess didn't happen 'til after this model was in production.]
 

soundwave76

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Good to know. I was aiming for some Genelecs, I guess I should not save on their smaller models and go too the larger ones first.

Absolutelly. Go for the largest your wallet allows and be sure to opt for the GLM models.
 

TLEDDY

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I took Army Basic at Fort Ord, CA in 1960... Live fire with M1 Garand’s and machinegun (blanks) with simulated artillery impacts way too close. All without hearing protection. I can hear 7 to 8K on a good day and use hearing aids when in a restaurant. Still can enjoy music!

What cymbals?!?

Oh yes...in my 80th year.
 

spacevector

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All the time dicking with measurements and reading the forums instead of listening to the damn music.
 

TLEDDY

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When a major health care company deliberately bankrupted me and I had to sell my Levinson HQD System at fire sale prices to make payroll.
 

cincyjack

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Not going into the dressing room between shows at the Blue Note during Chick Corea’s 75th birthday stint at the club to tell Chick and John McLaughlin how much I’ve enjoyed their music.
Carpe diem.
 

ta240

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Believing the people online that said my squeezebox touch didn't need an external DAC and the subsequent drop in how much I listened to music.

Buying less expensive equipment that left me wanting better rather than buying the more expensive option and being done with it.

Buying an audiophile power cord.....
 
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