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.
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@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...
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@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
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@curiousjim My first Hafler 220 was a class A/B design. I think they all were.
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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.
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Does anyone remember if the Hafler amps were class A or class A/B? I know their preamps were class A. The reason I ask is because they were my first introduction to high end equipment. I have built, bought and traded my way up the ladder ever since ( with few exceptions).
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Find a good dealer and get off the gear merry-go-round. And along with that develop confidence in your own ears and you will be a happy listener.
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There are folks who cook using recipes, and those who cook using an intuition. You just know. My wife is the former while I'm in the latter camp. I've never used a cook book but I make great food. Same with stereos. I don't need reviews. I just know how to put the system together, while keeping cost in check.
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Themproblem is learning what you want gear to perform like and not basing your decisions and self worth on others ideas.
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I reached the point in my audiophile journey that you are in right now about four years ago. At age 65 and now retired, I put my retirement system together then, and now, I'm content for the duration. I've got a great system, I'm tire of dumping money into the hobby endlessly, and I'm just tired of chasing the cat!!! Life's good. Happy listening
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Luckily I never had your problem (with a mortgage, 3 kids, their college loans and a sick mother who is the cheapest of all (only a few grand a month) I can afford to chase 30 year old $30 amps on shopgoodwill) 
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I chased gear the first few years I was in the game in the early to later 80s...lots of amps, speakers, TTs, etc, but by 1989 I had acquired the same speakers, amps, and preamp I use now. It’s really been a matter of refinement since then...tube rolling, bi-amping, mods, configuration changes, etc. I don’t read reviews, don’t go into audio stores, and have a much slower, calculated approach to my next move than the early days. I also think the system sounds better than ever. It gets enjoyed more than ever too, but maybe the listener isn’t as picky as he used to be (though I doubt it! )
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I consider myself lucky to have been introduced to high end stereo in the 80's when there were brick and mortar stores aplenty in NYC. I got to listen to a wide variety of equipment and understand what I liked and didn't. Reviews didn't really have much impact upon me, I just knew what sounded good to me.
Fast forward to the 2010's when I finally had some money to spend, and knowing what I liked helped me obtain the system I always dreamed of (and buy it used).
Bob
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I have a $150 Fosi ZA3 and quite frankly, it sounds fantastic driving my Piega Coax 16s fed directly from my MSB Discrete DAC. Go figure...
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This is me -- with food.
After 30 years of being so enamored with restaurants - I am happy to just eat food. I’ve stopped looking for better food.
Whenever i have bought new brands or kinds of food it never tasted as good as people were telling me.
Maybe sometimes it did but most of the time, I was disappointed.
My over eager desires wanted every new morsel of food to taste incredible.
Now, I just eat the same things everytime, don’t think about its qualities, and don’t seek out any improvements.
Looking for something better is not as good as simply chewing and swallowing.
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Pursuing high end audio is a very complex and ambiguous process. It requires successfully identifying the sound you like, sifting through marketing hype, evaluating equipment for sound, carefully choosing for the sound you want.
It is easy to get off track and follow marketing hype, poor reviews, other’s opinions.
I recommend, going and listening to live acoustic music. Apply your technical listening skills to characterize what you hear. Then go to high end shops and do general listing sessions to identify the kind of gear that is sounding what real music sounds like. Then read reviews of this equipment: Absolute Sound, Stereophile, and HIFI+ only. Do not read any of the other mags. Not that this mags aren’t infallible but they are relatively neutral. Then you need to make the correlation between what you hear from components and what reviewers say. Do not read marketing material on any components... it is completely unhelpful, as is the ASR site.
You need to use your ears to make the choices.
This is not a pursuit that is easy. But incredibly rewarding when you successfully navigate the many obstacles.
If you are not good at this analysis. Then find yourself a dealer that will carefully help you navigate all the alternatives. You have to interview and be interviewed by dealers to find one that gets you and what you are looking for and you get. There are actually many... but the ones simply out to sell give all a bad name. Typical medium sized shops, seek out the owner. Tell the story you posted. Find one that wants to be your guide.
Over the last fifty years I have slowly added a tubed piece of equipment after another until all my equipment is tubed. You can see my systems under my UserID. Tubed equipment took a hit in the '80s and has staged resergence since then because of its natural an musical sound.
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I do not trust reviews generally speaking , but it was nice to see my Amp and DAC on Part Time Audio's best of and best value for the DAC and few years in a row after I purchased them. They are great and definitely keepers.
My most recent buy was a pair of Studio Electric M4. They have been on that list every year since 2022 for good reason. They are awesome. That review did not influence my purchase, show reports by many saying that the Studio Electric room at shows sounded impressive did. Particularly those speakers.
I think I'm finally off the component merry go round for a while. As always , trust your ears.
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Regarding amps, I began buying them based on measured distortion profile rather than focusing on their topology. I.e., the amp’s primary distortion harmonic that would be most audible. I began noticing a pattern that my favorite amps have either second or third harmonic as their highest distortion component, with higher orders being below the amp’s noise floor. Solid state amps of this nature provide the most tube-like dimensionality without the typical drawbacks of tubes.
That’s how I landed on my current integrated amps, one of them being class D. If you’d asked me a year ago, I probably would’ve told you I’d never again purchase a class D amp.
Regarding reviewers, they make their money off of raves and rhapsodies. No one wants a product that is merely “ok for the money.” They know this, and that’s why they tend to gloss over or entirely omit any negative criticism. There are other reasons why I believe most reviews are untrustworthy but that’s too long a diatribe for a Sunday morning. Suffice to say that if you think about the reviewing industry critically, there is really only one conclusion to make.
Perhaps the best thing I have done in my audiophile journey was to cease reading the online pubs and watching the YT reviews. These days if I can’t somehow experience it for myself through the secondhand market or an audition, it’s not worth my attention. I only look at reviews if they include the aforementioned distortion measurements.
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Sounds like you have been reading too many reviews and buying what becomes trendy. not faulting you at all but I think you've concluded that isn't working and I agree with you.
I recommend relaxing a little and don't buy anything for a while.
I'm sure your system is good if not great. Remember if you are shopping in the high end areana, there are very few bad decisions. For example, I posted negative about Parasound yesterday, but that was compared to Rotel, Pass and Coda. I hate Parasound but if I had to listen to it I would learn to enjoy it. It isn't bad. We are chasing the last few percent.
I recommend STOP reading all reviews. Take all online recommendations, including on this site and including any equipment recommendation I make, with a grain of salt. Make your own decisions about what you like. Move slowly and if possible audition the equipment to make sure you like it.
Consider buying used so that if you don't like it, you can resell at about the same price you paid. Much easier to try lots of different equipment that way.
and oh yeah, break-in is highly exaggerated and often used to avoid returns. Equipment does break in a bit, but after a few hours, or maybe even minutes, it isn't that dramatic so don't expect a piece of equipment you don't like to get good. The best that can happen is your mind gets used to it.
Jerry
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