How long do you or should you keep your gear.

@oddiofyl I enjoyed my Quicksilver Monos for years. Tone to die for. After maybe a decade or so, though (through which I lived through stretches of good times and times of finicky tubes and various preamp meltdowns & misadventures), I took a flyer and bought a Primaluna Integrated. Maybe it's because, in the interim, I wanted to simplify my audiophile life and concentrate more on getting better on my musical instruments, but I honestly don't look back.

I've actually had good luck with tubes...QS has been super reliable.   I'm actually going to put the CJ pre and QS monos in a second system.

I auditioned my last two sets of speakers on PL integrated amps and thought they sounded quite good.

Modified JBL Hartsfields, never going anywhere. A friend bought some JBL L212’s with an extra low frequency driver, I still enjoy listening to them when I go to visit.

Captcha 4 times since login, bye!

I recently upgraded all my electronics. I've had my Martin Logan Aeon i's for 18 years and think it's time to upgrade. Obviously I've been very pleased with these speakers but always thought they lacked bass. Once inserted dual Martin Logan 1100x subs, it sounds great; with music and movies however, I'm a huge 2 channel music guy and the Aeons are/were never meant to deliver that kind of heart throbbing bass. Now my downfall...went to a local showroom and listened to the Martin Logan Masterpiece Series, Expression ESL 13A...OH MY GOODNESS!!!! ABSOLUTLEY SPEECHLESS. For the first time in nearly 20 years I heard a Martin Logan electrostat that didn't need a sub to deliver GREAT bass. Hook, line and sinker....its time to upgrade. But it'll take another 20 years to convince my wife to let me spend $15k on a pair of speakers that's not attached to something that sounds like Gucci, Fendi, Hemes, or the likes. What I do have in my favor, she also enjoys listening to great sounding music so that may cut my timeline down 10 years. 😉

Gear tends to hang around here for a while…

Back in the early 90’s during my previous audio journey, gear was in and out. My amp (Cary SLI-50), Tuner (Magnum Dynalab FT101A Etude upgrade), DAC (Theta Cobalt), CD player (Micromega Stage 3) and Phono Stage (McCormack Micro Phono) were all part of the last round of purchases done back then and are all still in use. They sat mostly unused for a long time, and after the divorce, I returned to music, and along with it, my gear. I have some ideas for changing things around, but that will happen over time as funds allow.

As far as the article goes, it was a bit thin and simplistic as far as discussing why gear gets changed out. According to the author, we are victims of either advertising, or needing to “keep up with the Jones’s.”  Didn’t address as listening skills get better, the refinement of gear producing the sound inevitably gets questioned and likely swapped out. The premise of the article is about “new” “better”, not closer to what we like from a sound standpoint, which could in fact be cheaper…