Have you changed your mind about a brand? Was it you, or them?

I had a deep love affair with Naim, as many British hifi-enthusiasts do.
Naim have a very cleverly marketed upgrade path where power supplies and separate components can be upgraded to the next up the chain. It is an addictive process. However I lost that love for Naim and realised the hype that was the ’upgrade path’ when I discovered that a 2 box Class A Vitus set-up cost much less than a top-of-the-range 6 box Naim System and sounded significantly better.

I disagree with the dismissal of B&W in some of these posts. The lower end of their range may be bright sounding, but the 800 series, when integrated into powerful quality amplification, sound absolutely sublime with absolutely no 'edginess'.  The top of that range, the 800 D3, is one of the best-priced high-end speakers in the market, competing with Wilsons and their ilk at far higher prices.  

I would have to say YBA  . wasn't too happy with the selling of the company to a chinese firm and switching all the lower end equipment to china ( i believe Shanling bought the business). , but given the way of business these days it was probably required in order to keep the brand viable.  Now the only really French hand built YBA gear is their top of the line Signature line, which unfortunelty is way out of my price range.

I met John Bowers when B&W hosted me in Worthing for a visit in the 70's. A wonderful man and engineer who really changed the face of hifi--and not just in England. Since his death things have spun wildly. Do a little research and you will find out that B&W has really changed since being sold, divided and whatever to wring maximum profits from a still-respectable brand.+1 on the B&W tweeters. I was ready to buy a pair until I heard them and then when I heard the Dynaudio lineup, I was converted. My brother-in-law sold B&W's and went to Maggies.EVOLUTION!

I thought that metal tweeters was the way to go.  I bought Mirage M-3Si quite a number of years ago.  At first, the big open sound was great.  But after some time it began to bother me; way too bright.  Raising children and paying for higher education prohibited me to replace them.  But now that is behind me and I have been building an entirely new audio system.  I auditioned BE tweeters in a few brands last year and, though better than the titanium metal tweeters in my Mirage speakers, they still sounded like a metal tweeter.  I had my eyes & ears on Dynaudio for some years.  I bought their car audio speakers for two of my car audio systems over the past 10 years.  So, I recently bought the Dynaudio Contour 60i set of speakers.  They are "smooth as silk" as stated above by jrbirdman333.  I only have about 12 hours of run-in time on them and already they sound amazing.  I can imagine the midrange and bass will only get better over the next 60 or 70 hours of run-in time.  But the real story hear is the tweeters.  Metal tweeters were once what I thought was great.  But actually a soft silk dome tweeter much more satisfies my musical tastes.  And also, far more satisfying to my ears.  From titanium to soft dome, from bright to smooth; made everything wonderful for me.

Marantz. Two failed disc players, one after another. The DV9500 and the SA8260. Very disappointing. I’ll never buy a disc player from them again. And Audio Research. I bought an integrated (used, right here on Audiogon) that had a bad power supply. AR would not support the repair of the product. Never again.