@afisher,
"Anger is generated in a lot audiophiles when the reality is nowhere near the promise of buying this or that recommended by professional reviewers or chasing recommendations made by strangers without personal consequences on the internet.
It’s very easy to go down the rabbit hole in this hobby and finally coming up poorer and wiser."
Yes, with so much disappointing gear (up to 90%?) it can definitely be a frustrating business to get into.
Far too many rabbit holes to get lost in.
"I have found that buying an entire system that you can hear from the remaining good brick and mortar dealers eliminates a lot of the anger and frustration generated by the hit and miss buying of never heard components off the internet."
Yes that could be a great way to start off.
It’s probably not very practical for most of us here. Not when we might have become attached to some of our gear.
Another issue is cost. If I was to sell off my system I’d be struggling to get £3k for it. I don’t fancy my chances of assembling a more satisfying system with that budget. Maybe, maybe not.
And then there’s that age old problem of finding a dealer that stocks a sufficiently wide range of equipment to give plenty of scope to contrast and compare.
Good dealers here in the UK are very hard to find nowadays (esp outside London).
I personally like the retail chain Richer Sounds and that’s where I would go if I ever wanted to assemble a complete system from scratch again.
Their loudspeaker range includes some of the top models from Dali, Elac, Monitor Audio and Q Acoustics, which might be sufficient for 90% of audiophiles.
