Though lacking the experience and expertise of the respondants thus far, the beginning of my audio journey nontheless encompassed a lot of their suggestions. My current system replaced a mass market one, so I lacked a usable reference for how an audiophile system should sound or how to go about building one. I had sold audio gear years before, but hadn't followed the market for quite some time. Recognizing those short comings I layed out a plan of attack.
In order, though some of this overlapped, the steps were:
Education - Auditioned a wide variety of components, especially speakers, to learn what was available, where my tastes lay and what seemed to satisfy them. Read everything I could lay my hands on including Audiogon, Audio Asylum, the audio news groups and both professional and amateur reviews. Asked questions at every opportunity of anyone who might respond. Learned quickly to take it all with a grain of salt, too...
Consideration - Thought through the short and long term expectations of the system with an eye toward an upgrade path. Using the auditions as a baseline a general budget was decided on, as well as how much to spend on each component. One issue that complicated things is that I rent my home. The room is always subject to change and that had to be factored in, too.
Confirmation - After the above was reasonably well lined out there were more auditions, again mostly speakers, this time focused on a defined set of desired traits. Once the speakers were decided on the rest of the gear selection literally fell into place.
Acquisition - Buying half the gear used kept the budget under control and allowed for upgrades to items like cables and tweaks. Being patient and waiting for the used gear to be offered for sale was the hardest part, but it literally saved me thousands of dollars.
Retrospection - The end result has met all expectations and has proved to be a good foundation for future improvements. But perfection is hard to acheive.
Were I to start over a few things would be different. More of the budget would go into the source components and speaker efficiency would get greater attention. Monitors with subs would also get consideration.
One -tion also needs mention. That is procrastination. Upon reflection, I over analyzed everything in an effort to avoid making mistakes and made some anyway. Today I'd be more apt take the plunge and fix the errors along the way. Even a mildly mismatched system would have been better than the extra three years I endured the mid-fi system!
