What has been your costliest mistake in this hobby?

One I just made buying an Aurender N100H which doesn’t sound any better than the raspberry pi4 I using with the same DAC. Don’t fall for the Streamer matters just as much as the DAC, BS

Very sound and precious advice for all.... That confirm my experience , when you have a relatively good audio system upgrading a part is most of the times a bad idea.... Embedding the three dimension of any system gives way more S.Q. What matters is only the embeddings mostly, especially with well choosen basic good gear ....I learn it like you the hard way.... :)

I paid for my dac a small amount of money but well choosen i never look back....

Sorry for your near 2300 dollars lost djones....

Not lost, I can sell it but yeah some money lost. 

But thanks for your post, it is very important to enlightened others.... 7 years ago i would have read your post and that would made me think seriously.... And perhaps help me to controls my urge to upgrade....  

My best to you,

 i hope you will sell it for a good price for you....

Not the most costly, but one I am still peeved about.

Had my Thorens TD124 on a high shelf, SME tonearm eye level, see that needle drop.

Oh did it drop. Shure V15VxMR, removable stylus with brush, microline on BERYLLIUM.

I dropped that stylus, it landed on my shirt, saved by the beer belly, didn't hit anything hard. Whew!!! 

Damn if the beryllium shaft wasn't shattered, I'm still mad, I won't buy anything more brittle than Boron, and I worry about that. I kept the body but didn't use it for years, found out about Jico here, bought their stylus for it, SAS on boron. 

It's wonderful, I was truly enjoying it, but my first MC AT33PTG/II beats it, I just put them thru another race for several hours today. The tighter channel balance produces an amazingly tight rock steady center, and the greater separation plays off that. I actually had to toe my speakers in more for something that was un-naturally wide (easy for me, heavy monsters on 3 wheels on wood grid floor, like graph paper).

I’ve been streaming over 10 years now and have yet to hear a difference with streamers.  Everything else way more.  Well, all the other usual things anyhow.  It’s the Dac, Mac!