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I always have been somewhat of an audio stalker, reading and lusting after gear. But my "mistress" has always been faithful.
Sometimes we fall in love with the idea or potential of a product, only to be disappointed with the real thing. Have you ever had your audiophile heart broken?
I fully expect that no stereo can come close to the experience from our mid orchestra seats. Indeed, as my main stereo system gets better, it reveals the location of the microphones above the orchestra. Since we don't hang over the conductor very often, the sound is unrealistic. Hence, I prefer some euphonic distortions—of the thermionic type—in our system to give some semblance of soundstating. However, Zappas' guitar must come through unscathed. Indeed.
My jumping into SACD two years ago with a $7000 Musical Fidelity kW. It only ever played one SACD—it couldn't even play the SACD that it came with. Also had the noisiest transport I ever heard (CD was great but the noise really made it unpleasant). Took me two years to finally find out how awesome SACD is, with my new Esoteric.
I bought a Proceed PDSD surround processor 12 years ago that was supposed to be future proof;that's what many people were told at the time. But guess what? No soonner then six years or so, it was put out of service by the same guys that told us it would never be obsolete,well, almost. I will never buy a Mark Levinson product again in my life and guess many others will do the same. I sold it at a big loss, sold my Mark Levinson 333 at a good price, then bought a SP 1.7 processor from Bryston, bought four 7B-ST from the same company, and never looked back.
My dream was (15 years ago) to buy a Sony ES CD player. When I got it, I could not hear any sound improvement over my $1000 Pioneer Laser Disc Player. At the same time, I paid around $1200 for a Pioneer receiver whose audio quality was inferior to my Proton receiver. Since then both brands (Sony & Pioneer) are on my black list
Based only on its review, I bought a Kenwood KD-500, Infinity Black Widow tonearm, with a Micro-Acoustics cartridge. This is why we don't like direct drive turntables. Bright, grainy, like AM radio, and bass like slapping a piece of meat. I hope the reviewer got a good bribe, I'd hate to think the review was sincere. I now only trust my ears.
I really wanted a pair of Meadowlark Hotrod Kestrals or Hotrod Shearwaters, but they honestly need 8+feet of distance between speakers and listener to sound their best which isn't possible in my room. Rather than try and force things, I bought speakers I like less overall but perform better in my room.
I bought a pair of horn speakers after the woofer cones of my fabulous Alon V's disintegrated due to exposure through a living room window to sunlight. I should have known not to skimp on lower tier gear to save a couple of bucks. Hindsight is 20/20 and painful.
20 years ago I was bewitched by the sound of a pair of Maggies. This was soon ruined by continual problems of corrosion nixing the sound. I never did find the cause and, sadly, had to bail out, having to exist on much poorer speakers for a while.
My Linn LP12, it was the best built product that was a part of my system and gave fuss free service for many years. However it was a product that was built on hyper-hype. I kept making excuses for its sound after hearing so many great tables; Pink Triangle, SME, Michell, to name a few—after 18 years I decided to sell it.
Every major component I've ever bought new and anywhere near list price has been a flesh wound, with the exceptions of my departed Connoisseur turntable, Dynaco 400 amp and Eminent Technology LFT-VIIIs. My luck or choices with music has been much better—and there could be a lesson in there.