What has been your costliest mistake in this hobby?

These are all great responses....and I mean great in a sense that I’m not alone in my frustration. Its always fun to hear all the great sound we aspire to, but also fun to hear the mishaps along the way and how we arrive to where we are today!

Good stuff!

My biggest mistake was to buy to IsoAcoustics Gaia I with 220 lb limit. Although provided with a kit of different mounts, non was oassing to my speakers. On top a month later I got an attractive offer and upgraded my speakers to new ones with 400+ lb of weight. Now the beautifully built IsoAcoustics still stay at home in their nice exspensive boxes...

Years after the factory had shuttered, I was swapping out a PC to my beloved Kinergetics KBA 75. Either I plugged the new PC into the wall first, or neglected to shut the amp off... sparks flew amp blown, too costly to repair

I asked Stereo Fixers in Boca Raton and Music Technology in VA to "fix" the channel imbalance in my Luxman CL-32 pre-amp.  They BOTH charged me a ton of money and "couldn't fix the problem."

When I had my shop, if we could NOT fix something, we charged the customer the $20.00 "look-at" fee and nothing else.

I guess times have changed with shops now charging lots of money for what they CAN NOT do.

If I took my car to a shop and they could not fix it, I would never pay them, nor would they charge me other than a minimum "look-at" fee in my experience.  

Cheers!

Lol great idea for a thread!

For me, impulsively buying speakers before I realized that I shouldn't be "collecting" them.