Audio time travel: what would you do differently?

[Paul L]

Very little; Non, Je ne regrette rien

Same here really, easy to think about money I shouldn’t have spent at the time but I had a hugely enjoyable carousel of listening experiences with different kit and systems across the years, some owned some home demmed for a few days and some heard elsewhere, lots of music, made some friends, enjoyed a lot of varied music.

I guess what I personally learned the most was how important room and speakers are and if I could take the old head back to the early days I would spend far more time understanding what was going on in the room to get the best out of the speakers. When I put on old vinyl now I’m often surprised how much more I notice than I did on previous systems and I don’t believe the current system is superior per se to others I have owned, I do think the speakers and room make it more obvious to me.

The second lesson as others have said is stop chasing the dragon’s tail. Many systems can sound magnificent regardless of price but all are flawed and all that matters is whether they make you want to play music.

 

[matt303]

1990s: Separate pre/power amps are not necessarily better than integrated ones.

My shortest lived folly was replacing my Naim Nait 5i with Naim Pre/Power while I had very sensitive Rega R5 speakers, volume control was unusable and oh the constant hiss if I tried to leave the amp on, we could even reproduce it at the dealership with the top end Naim Pre/Power setups on R5 speakers, swapped to a Nait XS and all was good again. Not been bothered with Pre/Power since.

I never liked the R5 speakers that much either so the whole thing was a match made in hell

 

[IanRB]

Don't bother chasing accuracy, just go for the sound you like.

 

[gustav_errata]

I'm not shy about mentioning (maybe annoyingly repeating?) that I'm a complete newbie, so my hi-fi time travel really only goes back a couple years with basically one message: since you're planning to get used gear, join a forum before investing in gear for which contemporary reviews are not readily available. I probably wouldn't have ended up with the amplification and speakers that I have now.

Plus, maybe I would try to suggest to myself to pony up and buy some gear back around 2014-2015 when I was making good money (for academia) and didn't have kids.

Going further back, though, some similar messages as others:
- to myself in my teens & twenties: wear ear protection at all concerts, raves, & parties, and also while DJing
- to my parents when I was little: put ear protection on us at the annual town parade when the fire trucks and ambulances went by, sirens blaring, at 5mph.

 

[Tony L]

One thing I have always done with Hifi is always pay with money I have spare, never took a loan for any of it. Discretionary spending is not worth getting into debt for.

I go a step further and try to buy good desirable stuff stuff second hand and pre-devalued so I can view it as an investment that can be released. I’m way, way ahead overall, if I sold-up now my lifetime hi-fi spend would be hugely in profit. These days I’m just offsetting consumables such as cartridges, valves etc. The core stuff actually tends to increase in value. I’m even ahead on valves as I’ve been stashing for many years now and the current price for good tested vintage Mullards etc is just crazy.

PS This mindset is born out of having very little income in the 1980s. I learned fast how to make a profit on vinyl, hi-fi, guitars, synths etc. It has never left me. It is just a survival mechanism.

 

[RoA]

I have learned nought after decades. I still make mistakes I am still attracted to stuff I can't afford and there is tons to be discovered yet/money to be lost

 

[RoA]

What a heap of s%$# Sting made after the Police.

Apologies for steering slightly off-topic

 

[TimF]

The journey has truly been fun, and that is probably more important, as is the music. I admit to having spent quite a bit of money on gear over the years, and cannot really say that I have had any truly bad pieces over the years. But, I think I have learned to take a more systems approach, versus say buying one really good piece of gear, and a year or so later adding another. I think more along system synergy? Not always easy to do of course, but I have been much happier in this approach over the longer haul and want for nothing really.

I think there have been certain systems that I have had, that would have surely been "good enough", and I could have/should have, maybe stopped right there. Like most hobbies though, it tends to grow wings and you want to try new things just because. Not getting caught up in some of the hype and flavor of the month clubs can be difficult at times. Now, I just sit back and enjoy the music using what I have, and I have found that I also have more time to enjoy other things in life just as much, if not more. And that for me, is an even better thing.

Oh, and another thing, I typically have found for my ears, less is usually more. The simpler, usually the better.