What steps forward were actually steps backward?

Dampening devices are killers of music. Tom

Buying cheap components as stop gap measures and also to placate the wife have lead to unsatisfactory music reproduction. Too many artifacts in the music presentation just prevented me from enjoying the music, as that is what it is really about. Some one once told me "Buy cheap, buy twice". That has proven itself to me over and over again. Also spur of the moment buying in the mid-fi store (aka Tweeter, etc.) has produced the same experience. I was never happy with what I ended up with from that place. Also listening to the hype surrounding this hobby has proven itself to be misleading. A component with 50+ positive reviews on Audioreview.com and mutliple positive posts here were proven wrong (IMO). The component, in my system, was a dissapointment from the start. It never lived up to its hype.

So, live and learn. I'm pretty happy now, but I've taken a few hits in the wallet to learn what sounds good to me. Listen first and decide for yourself.

The trick to downgrading or buying "budget" equipment (due to the ridiculous prices of cables these days the concept of "budget" has become distorted in this hobby: recently two high-end dealers in this area said that people spending $1500 on a component were cheap - but I put it to you all, while many on this website label $1500 components "budget", you'd go apopleptic if your mechanic tried to screw you with a $1500 bill for repairs, wouldn't you?!), is to focus on musicality and timing, and forget about all that audiophile bullshit (which a good budget component will give in good measure anyway) in which a budget component will of course fail to measure up. But given a truly musical piece, you just don't care about all the missing "information". Now if we all followed this philosophy in buying this equipment, maybe there would a "Trickle Up" phenomenon, and we could expect all high-end components not to disappoint us in the long term, and the designers to start listening instead of measuring. I know I'm pie-eyed.

An excellent thread. I recently sold my MOSFET output Sony ES integrated amp and 'upgraded' to a McIntosh MA-6900 integrated. The Sony put out 20wpc Class A, shifting to 100wpc A/B. The Mac puts out 200wpc all Class A/B. What a difference!! The Sony sounded faster, more detailed and with more slam than the Mac ever has. The Sony simply overwhelms the Mac on soft passages and microdynamics, which are very important to me as I mostly listen at relatively low levels. Wish I had been smart enough to hang on to the Sony as one rarely sees a TA-F808ES on Audiogon. So I will try Denon's MOSFET integrated in the meantime.

Similar experience with Cardas Golden Cross bi-wire speaker cables. They should have blown away my relatively inexpensive Tara Labs bi-wires. But, no way. After three months I was back to the much better sound of the Tara Labs.

Guess the old saw of 'horses for courses' sures holds true in audio. Next time I hang on to the old until I spend some time with the new.

Sold an Adcom GFP-750 preamp and bought a Pass X-2.5 preamp.
The Adcom sounded better in my particular system! Sold the Pass and bought another Adcom!I know this makes no sense whatsoever, but my ears don't lie to me!