What has been your costliest mistake in this hobby?

+1 kairosman

Yeah, I don’t drink, smoke, or gamble (well except driving on the roads in West Texas)


Finished building a pair of stand mount speakers that I still have, after sending them in for paint, which was by the guy next door to the speaker factory I worked.. I chipped one of the burgundy candy apple speakers, and had to have it repainted - of course not candy apple again.

Purchased a pair of floor stander speakers that I thought looked great and initially sounded ok, to never use them or sell them, lost in a move.

Forgot to have my D-class amplifier hooked up to speakers and blew a module, fortunately I knew a guy much cleverer than I who fixed it for me.

Purchased three mid-fi pre amps that introduced so much noise into my system that I have them back in boxes and in the garage. I use the volume control on my DAC straight to the power amp now.

There's probably so many little mistakes along the way I'll recall when others post theirs...

@kairosman for us it’s Audio.  Audio is our dope! 

mkgus

I love when trouble leads to 'better'.

what was the design error?

millercarbon

now that you mention CD’s,

1st: 8 tracks (hundred of them).

Cassettes made 8 tracks cheap, 6 for $5.00 (incl tax .88c each). Had no disposable money in those days, so every payday I would wander the music store, decided to buy stuff I would never spend any real money on, listen to them when I retire. Acquired a few hundred. Pressure pads rotted, worthless.

2nd: CD’s (thousands of them).

I quit smoking 32 years ago. Decided, as an incentive, the bills were getting paid, I will spend my cigarette money on music and music equipment. Carton a week was $700. in 1988. Gave myself a yearly rise in pay as cost of cigarettes increased .../yr, now $3,900 in NJ, $6,700 NYC.

Aside from some nice equipment, I bought a load of CDs, so many, I needed space, and normal 12" binders fit the inside discs between the rings, not fitting the booklet, so, Harrington’s had very nice deep leather binders. each page 8 discs with booklets, fit 80-100 stuffed each. Music, Movies, Music DVDs, eventually 45 binders. I never imagined how 22 years would add up (I quit this 10 years ago, when I retired age 62).

Then, rediscover LP, I play few CD’s now, but not many, and I am replacing my favorite CD’s with Vinyl if available.

Cannot sell them, plastic cases tossed, and I thought my sons would inherit this ’flawless’ collection. They don’t have a CD player in their house or car.

Thank goodness I kept my LP’s, people who quit LP gave me theirs, ..., weeding now, found successful cleaning method, down to 2,500.

Lost money: cost of 300 8 tracks, 3,000 CD’s,  37 leather binders, that’s no small potatoes.

Selling my (4) Marantz 9's for $10K over 30 years ago.  They went to SONY HQ in Tokyo but i kept the Marantz 7C which I am just now getting ready to sell.