What’s a mistake you made by being impulsive?

In mid April I purchased a Rega Planar 3 w/Ania MC cart to replace my Heybrook TT2/LVX/OC-9ML combo.  
While I was breaking in the Rega I serviced the Heybrook myself in order to sell it.  
After setting everything back to spec I had a listen and guess what?
It sounds considerably better  than the Rega combo which has 30 hours on it.  Guess I should have done that first before I bought the Rega.
The OC-9ML has around 200 hours on it... it's a keeper.
The Planar 3/Ania is for sale.

Very nice thread topic, well stated! You should get a lot of varied feedback. Here's my experience... 

I'm sure there were at least a few dozen times (even though I try to discriminate in regards to what I will/won't view) that I saw movies which were unremarkable. Also, I have eaten many meals during my lifetime that were not culinary delights. I hasten to add that my wife is a terrific cook, and there were only two times, as we were about to leave for vacation, and she scrounged in the fridge to make an unusual meal simply to use up perishables, commenting, "This will not taste good." She was right, but those were the only two times what she made was not delicious. 

I have been through dozens upon dozens of pieces of gear, and in some combinations they weren't impressive. In others, glorious. However, everything I did in the lower budget realm (i.e. $5-10K) pales in comparison with better rigs. I could consign all of the sub $10K rigs to the unimpressive category. 

Is it impulsive to buy to upgrade? Sure, why not. We're all doing that. None of this is needed. Pretty much all of audio is a degree of impulse buying. 

The first few times you don't get a good match it is deflating. After a while, if you keep up with system making, you realize not every combo is golden. No biggie. It's when you think you have to get every dollar maximized, as though you can't make a mismatch, that you are going to suffer. So, suffer. A realistic attitude will realize the plethora of combos WILL yield wildly different sound, and the spectrum of performance is WAY beyond what you think. 

Finally, it takes a lot of work to get some products to sound good, but some never will. Those you can usually screen out due to inherent design/build characteristics, if you know what to look for, and your preferences. Ignorance kills. But, how to get experience? Make mistakes.  LOL I would not take back any of the experiences I have had, for they shaped my development as a System Builder. I learned so much from all the different forms of systems. 

The worst? Determine that you have to find the perfect piece for your system. Think it must sound far better with little effort. Great way to set yourself up for problems. :)

willgolf, good point on impulsivity on selling in order to buy. That is for sure a killer! BTW, read my review of the Legacy i.V4 Ultra Amps at Dagogo.com; class D is VERY different now than several years ago. It is glorious with horns - and everything else! 

I did in the lower budget realm (i.e. $5-10K) pales in comparison with better rigs. I could consign all of the sub $10K rigs to the unimpressive category.

Do you listen the electronic component quality instead of the Speakers/ROOM ?

Probably....

In my experience there is absolutely no comparison between the sonic quality of a system BEFORE and AFTER vibrations and noise floor controls and especially acoustic control...

Then instead of saying that anything under 10,000 bucks is "uninpressive" perhaps you must think twice and instead of selling to people the illusion of an absolute S.Q. scale with what is "the best in the world" at the top determined by YOU , you must sell the - S.Q. /PRICE RATIO- concept which is more objective, more practical and less deluding ?

But your expertise is in this "without end pursuit" to the moon with you guiding it seems....

After reading you most people must think that they listen to "trash" and must definitively forgot about improving their pile of low "uninpressive " gear...Which is false because all relatively good system can be transformed in a better one.... Even the best in the world can be put to another level with elementary basic science....

Great job you do taking people in the opposite direction......Money talks louder than the brain indeed....

Very useful.... 😁

But for whom?







The truth is simple, when you pass some point of S.Q. /PRICE ratio and when you adress the vibrations problem, electrical noise floor problem, and acoustic, you are in the only important category : those who can enjoy without investing a fortune a great "music" experience; the "best sound in the world" is for a few very rich people....Anyway happily for us sound is not music....Snobs can stay unimpressed....It takes a brain to compute the ratio S.Q./price anyway not only ears....

In a space of 3 years I went up the Oppo ladder from DV-980H to BDP-105D with EVS mods in several steps. I could hear clear improvement with each upgrade which made me hungry for the ultimate upgrade. I knew I couldn't afford my dream Esoteric X-01, but I thought it would be fun to make a spreadsheet comparing the features, MSRPs, date of release, and going price for a used model of all the high-end SACD/Universal disc players that might fit my dream. ABSOLUTELY just for fun and amusement. Then I thought it wouldn't hurt to search for bargains on the used market...just for fun. BIG Mistake!

My spreadsheet kept growing and growing until my head spun. I knew that one feature I loved about the Oppo was the USB input. I can download music onto thumb drives and and scroll through them with ease. In the process of doing my research I came across much praise for the Ayre C-5Xce. So I added it to my spreadsheet. Alas, it lacks the USB port. The Ayre DX-5 has USB. I am not so good at keeping model names and numbers straight in my head.

A month or so goes by and I see a C-5Xce MP on the bay for a good price. I shave a few hundred off and make an offer. It is accepted and I joyfully make the payment. When I get it all set up I will sell the BDP-105 so I really didn't spend too much, anyway. The next day I had a haunting feeling that something was wrong. I went back and consulted my spreadsheet and as you can see, I had bought the wrong Ayre model! It does sound a tad better than the BDP-105; (maybe my hearing is not good enough to fully appreciate the benefits) but it can't replace it because it doesn't  fulfill all the same functions. I can't sell the Oppo or defray the cost of the Ayre, which I seldom use because navigation is a PIA. I can't see the LED screen from my chair. So I definitely wouldn't miss the Ayre if it was gone. Sometimes I think I'll resell it but I never get around to it.

The Bob Carver Amazing Line Source Speakers.
I own the Bob Carver 350 mono blocks and they are great! So what better than to buy speakers made by the same company/man?
Wrong! Very disappointed in the speakers. They took way too much power to run and it was mostly a high midrange/ lower treble sound.
I traded them in as soon as I could.

Audition, audition, audition, especially speakers!

ozzy