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What has been your costliest mistake in this hobby?

For example :I recently learned a hard lesson- I accidentally ran voltage thru my $3000 MC cartridge (kiseki purple heart).  I have a TT with 5 prong connector and a phono cable with a 5 prong connector.  I accidentally swapped where they plugged into and ran electric thru the tonearm into the cartridge.  It was a stupid - not thinking- hasty mistake. When I corrected the problem the cartridge was fried.  An avalanche of four letter words followed!

So what has been your biggest and/or costliest mistake?
polkalover
orgillian197
119 posts
 
Like many, dumping about $15k worth of albums for a pittance,  SME tonearm, several cartridges, etc chasing the lie of "perfect sound" forever by buying a what later proved to be garbage cd player, dozens of what later proved to be garbage cds, etc. All because I wanted to hear Keith Jarrett, etc with no surface noise... Now albums I bought new for $3 each in the 1970s sell for much more if they can be found at all.
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
13,011 posts
 
Biggest mistake I made was buying a pair of highly regarded floorstanding speakers which got many great reviews without ever hearing them first. They sounded God-awful so naturally it couldn’t be the speakers. I replaced every component and wire in the system at a tremendous cost and after many tens of thousands of dollars, the system still sounded horrible. After many sleepless nights, I sold the highly regarded speakers and started over. Lesson learned. I will never buy something like speakers without hearing them first. That mistake cost me upwards of 40K.
Thanks for this interesting story.... I am sorry for your lost tough really...

One point, what you said is true for any speakers past some price point.... We must listen to them before buying, because past a certain price point there is not so much reviews by not only pro but non pro reviewers...

For low price speakers, i dont want to spell a price here, it is very possible to buy without hearing, i do it successfully, but because especially with older, or past legends, vintage, or very well sold few years one, the ocean of reviews gives to you all the cross information to make a good choice... My best to you....
glenr55
2 posts
 

I was going through a divorce back in the mid-80s and, understandably, I wasn’t thinking clearly 100% of the time.  So, I was alone at my soon-to-be former house finishing up packing my stuff one afternoon and for some reason decided I just couldn’t be bothered with the remaining 70 to 80 of my albums still there. So I asked the teenage kid next door if he wanted them and after he looked at me like WTF?, he, of course, says - Sure!

Every now and then I’ll hear a song and remember an old album I like and think - Dang, didn’t I used to have that record?

Oh well...

wsrrsw's avatar
wsrrsw
1,005 posts
 
Got a used Furman it-ref 15i. It made the sound dull. Yuck  Plugged AMP right into wall and life was good. Wall outlet upgraded too. 
Then got a new niagara 7000 and all was well. 
Put the Furman on the “B” system and it didn’t affect sound.
Stuff fits together or it doesn’t.  
Wasted $ on poor connects and speaker wire. Didn’t know enough back then. 
dekay's avatar
dekay
5,558 posts
 
That's an easy one...

The tweak in which I was directed to take a Polaroid of myself bathing in a bathtub full of Diane St. Clair butter and then afterwards to place the photo in the kitchen freezer. 

The butter alone cost over $18,000.00. 

I mean what was I thinking (should have used the smaller tub in the spare bathroom)? 

DeKay 
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