a rant

One thing that always amuses me is how many reviewers come out with immense amounts of hyperbole about the gear under review, yet fail to have any idea as to the gear that was used to make the recording they are listening to. Many times the recording gear was so poor that the things that the reviewer is supposedly hearing could never be recored by said recording gear! A minor detail.

@curiousjim  My first Hafler 220 was a class A/B design. I think they all were.

@kennymac 

My story is similar 

4 years ago at 65, I stopped the chase after 45+ years, got a nice integrated amp and some good stand-mounted speakers. I kept my tt, streamer & CD transport.

I kept about 300 albums and 100 or so CDs since no one knows what streaming will be like 5-10 years in the future. 

Any involvement with audio is now confined to listening... and it's great! No more combing through reviews and spec's, wondering if I can make some tiny improvement for $$$.

It felt odd getting rid of the separates and 5-6 pairs of big speakers...including the Maggie's that I believed could not be improved upon, but I don't miss any of that stuff. 

It was a fun ride, albeit wasteful, but it was the path that led me here. 

Cheers

@curiousjim I built the Hafler kits, DH220 and accompanying preamp. Great value for the money and time spent. It was definitely Class AB, with the huge MOSFET transistors and enormous heat sinks. I used the pair in one system or another for 40 years... They're still in storage somewhere, and they make me nostalgic for my early audiophile days...

OP, I understand what you are saying and it can be hard to avoid. I agree with what many have said about reviewers. I don’t avoid them and find them interesting because I like learning about equipment. I do try to take them with a huge grain of salt, however, and use them only to learn about the general features and design of a product, Not so much sound quality. I like reviews that at least provide measurements although I don’t think measurements tell the whole story. Most of all, whether it’s one of the magazines or a YouTuber, those who publish reviews often, in some cases nearly always, have a financial conflict of interest. It doesn’t make them evil or dishonest, but it does mean the review is rarely going to be objective.

trust your ears more than someone else’s opinion. Try to listen to as many pieces of gear as you can if you are in shopping mode. Remember that most of the advice you get  will be to make the same choices that the advisor made, and that will be great advice if your tastes are the same and your ears are the same. There is a lot to be learned by someone else’s journey, but you can’t learn what you like from them. we all like something different and it is very subjective. on the other hand, you can learn a lot about the general build quality of equipment, the sound characteristics, etc. reviews and advice can be great to help you narrow down the list of equipment that you should try to hear.

When you are evaluating a review, or someone else’s advice, understand the serious limitations of language when employed to describe sound. if someone describes a color as Carolina blue, or black or ruby red, we pretty much know what they are talking about with some precision. On the other hand, if someone tells you a component sounds “warm“ or “bright”  or “transparent” we may have a general idea of what they mean, but it is far less precise. Another way of saying we have to trust our own ears above all else.
 

Have realistic expectations.  I rarely have experienced the “night day” difference from an equipment change, especially from cables, etc., that I read about sometimes. Speakers and room treatments made the biggest difference for me, but it may be otherwise for you. Subtle but discernible improvements have been the more likely result in moving up for me. 
 

I think Audiophiles, more than most, yearn for affirmation of our choices. So if someone, maybe a reviewer or someone who posts in forums, criticizes what we have, there’s a great temptation to jump down the rabbit hole. That might be a good time just to listen to music on your system and ask yourself if you find it enjoyable. If so, you are probably in a pretty good place.