Rekindled my audio pastime. Bought speakers, good deal. Bought amp, touched speaker wires together, blew amp. Fixed under warranty, whew!. Heard a strange fuzziness and ringing..sent inter connects back and passive preamp back(that I now don't need and sold) nothing wrong. Never did figure that one out. Sent in crossover because of fuzziness/ringing. Got new op amps and a checkover for $160, a bargain. Cat busted off my banana plugs on my speakers twice, now have spades. Nice vender fixed for ZERO. Bought streamer on Amazon, then bought Bluesound. Sold original for almost new cost. $10 loss, another whew! Making homemade sound panels on the cheap and buying cheap bass traps, Loss of $300. So moral of the story is I dealt with good people and it didn't cost me much except chasing phantoms and changing gear in and out. And now I have about $8k in everything and it sounds pretty darn good!! All comes with the territory and it gave this newly retired guy something to do last winter.
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?
So what has been your biggest and/or costliest mistake?
188 responses Add your response
@elliottbnewcombjr, ’Cannot sell them, plastic cases tossed, and I thought my sons would inherit this ’flawless’ collection. They don’t have a CD player in their house or car.’ I wouldn’t be too surprised if they wouldn't have wanted them even if they had been intact. It is a difficult notion, certainly for me, to get into my head that so much of the stuff that I’ve spent so many years getting hold of means so little to friends and family. I think we attempt to create our own personalised worlds of experience, much like the kings and emperors in the days of old, which can ultimately have little meaning for anyone else. Much like Charles Foster Kane, but he was fortunate enough to have Xanadu, most of us are grateful for digital storage. Ultimately, our entire expenditure on our audio hobby has be valued for what it has been worth to us, what meaning it had for us, and what pleasure it gave us. It can be a serious mistake to think that our gear worth as much as we might like to believe, or anywhere near what we might have paid for it. This industry is routinely littered with overpriced, overpromoted rubbish. Anyone unlucky enough to fall for it is therefore consequently forced to stick with it or accept considerable losses in moving it on. But then audiophiles aren’t likely to get into audio to make money, are they? Ultimately, our entire expenditure on our audio hobby has be valued for what it has been worth to us, what meaning it had for us, and what pleasure it gave us. |
More than a few to name, but the one that really sticks is when I burned up a set of drivers that cost $600 ea. They were new for um, maybe a couple days before I got the idea to add a tube buffer that I had worked on, but did NOT test! You can't make it from the listening chair to the power switch in time, no matter what. |
millercarbon now that you mention CD’s, 1st: 8 tracks (hundred of them). Cassettes made 8 tracks cheap, 6 for $5.00 (incl tax .88c each). Had no disposable money in those days, so every payday I would wander the music store, decided to buy stuff I would never spend any real money on, listen to them when I retire. Acquired a few hundred. Pressure pads rotted, worthless. 2nd: CD’s (thousands of them). I quit smoking 32 years ago. Decided, as an incentive, the bills were getting paid, I will spend my cigarette money on music and music equipment. Carton a week was $700. in 1988. Gave myself a yearly rise in pay as cost of cigarettes increased .../yr, now $3,900 in NJ, $6,700 NYC. Aside from some nice equipment, I bought a load of CDs, so many, I needed space, and normal 12" binders fit the inside discs between the rings, not fitting the booklet, so, Harrington’s had very nice deep leather binders. each page 8 discs with booklets, fit 80-100 stuffed each. Music, Movies, Music DVDs, eventually 45 binders. I never imagined how 22 years would add up (I quit this 10 years ago, when I retired age 62). Then, rediscover LP, I play few CD’s now, but not many, and I am replacing my favorite CD’s with Vinyl if available. Cannot sell them, plastic cases tossed, and I thought my sons would inherit this ’flawless’ collection. They don’t have a CD player in their house or car. Thank goodness I kept my LP’s, people who quit LP gave me theirs, ..., weeding now, found successful cleaning method, down to 2,500. Lost money: cost of 300 8 tracks, 3,000 CD’s, 37 leather binders, that’s no small potatoes. |
+1 kairosman Yeah, I don’t drink, smoke, or gamble (well except driving on the roads in West Texas) Finished building a pair of stand mount speakers that I still have, after sending them in for paint, which was by the guy next door to the speaker factory I worked.. I chipped one of the burgundy candy apple speakers, and had to have it repainted - of course not candy apple again. Purchased a pair of floor stander speakers that I thought looked great and initially sounded ok, to never use them or sell them, lost in a move. Forgot to have my D-class amplifier hooked up to speakers and blew a module, fortunately I knew a guy much cleverer than I who fixed it for me. Purchased three mid-fi pre amps that introduced so much noise into my system that I have them back in boxes and in the garage. I use the volume control on my DAC straight to the power amp now. There's probably so many little mistakes along the way I'll recall when others post theirs... |
Not the most costly, but one I am still peeved about. Had my Thorens TD124 on a high shelf, SME tonearm eye level, see that needle drop. Oh did it drop. Shure V15VxMR, removable stylus with brush, microline on BERYLLIUM. I dropped that stylus, it landed on my shirt, saved by the beer belly, didn't hit anything hard. Whew!!! Damn if the beryllium shaft wasn't shattered, I'm still mad, I won't buy anything more brittle than Boron, and I worry about that. I kept the body but didn't use it for years, found out about Jico here, bought their stylus for it, SAS on boron. It's wonderful, I was truly enjoying it, but my first MC AT33PTG/II beats it, I just put them thru another race for several hours today. The tighter channel balance produces an amazingly tight rock steady center, and the greater separation plays off that. I actually had to toe my speakers in more for something that was un-naturally wide (easy for me, heavy monsters on 3 wheels on wood grid floor, like graph paper). |
One I just made buying an Aurender N100H which doesn’t sound any better than the raspberry pi4 I using with the same DAC. Don’t fall for the Streamer matters just as much as the DAC, BSVery sound and precious advice for all.... That confirm my experience , when you have a relatively good audio system upgrading a part is most of the times a bad idea.... Embedding the three dimension of any system gives way more S.Q. What matters is only the embeddings mostly, especially with well choosen basic good gear ....I learn it like you the hard way.... :) I paid for my dac a small amount of money but well choosen i never look back.... Sorry for your near 2300 dollars lost djones.... |
I bartered with a very well regarded local dealer. Made the mistake of thinking we were friends. Traded a very large, very expensive oriental rug without agreeing on what I was to receive in exchange - we agreed that he would have rug valued. Took a long time - months? - but eventually we agreed on a value, $10k. With that, he was supposed to source a Garrard 401, build a plinth, and also I was going to get a new DAC. He never delivered on anything - I would nicely remind him, and he’d make some encouraging noises, but 3 years later I sent an annoyed note and he freaked out. Said I was being unreasonable, we didn’t have a deal, blah, blah, blah. Eventually, he had a guy from his shop dump the rug on my driveway when I wasn’t home. Had a new stain on it too. Obviously haven’t talked to him since. Oh well. Found my own 401 in U.K., shipped it directly to Woodsong Audio (Chris Harban), who restored it and created a gorgeous plinth for me, color matched to my italian tube amp (purchased from the a-hole). Still haven’t replaced my DAC or sold the rug, but got a beautiful tt! |
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 |
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. |
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... |
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.... |
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. |
A well-known vintage audio dealer was selling tradeins on Ebay. I had purchased used equipment from them before and they were about two hours away, so anything I bought I could pick up personally rather than risk having it shipped. When I first bought equipment from them, the store’s owner took me to the back room and showed the unit on the test bench, which led me to assume that they do their own repair in house. So, after perusing their Ebay listings, I bought a Sansui AU-717 that had been owned by one of their regular cuctomers, who was its first owner. I called the vintage audio dealer and reached the guy who handled their Ebay sales. I paid a modest amount to have the tech--who I later learned was an outside contractor--look it over and replace anything that needed it. That was my first mistake: not being clear about what I wanted done. Did I want a full restoration, or just "fix what’s broken" when, according to the listing, everything supposedly worked fine? I was shown the Sansui powered up. Second mistake: I didn’t take the time to ask them to pop the hood and let me look inside. I took it home and installed it in the system (in retrospect, another mistake). On the third day it went into protection and stayed there. At that point I should have taken it back to the seller. But, reluctant to make the drive and thinking that I needed to find a reliable repair shop closer to home, I took the crippled Sansui to a vintage audio dealer about half an hour away. That was my third mistake. Even he questioned why I didn’t take it back. When he showed me the unit powered up and working a few days later, he talked as if he did the work himself. Again, the charges were quite reasonable. The Sansui failed again about a day later. I had intended all along to have it completely restored if I liked how it sounded. Trolling Ebay, I found a Sansui restorer there whose listing was persuasive. Now, before the ritual denunciations of Ebay start, I’ll state that I have bought and sold audio equipment on Ebay for close to a decade and, with few exceptions, had positive experiences. I emailed the restorer and asked whether he would be interested in repairing and restoring my Sansui AU-717. I would have to ship it most of the way across the country.Before he replied, however, I found that he had for sale a completely restored AU-717. I pulled the trigger on it. That purchase was a righteous one. The unit is still in my system and performs wonderfully. He expressed interest in the crippled AU-717. We agreed on a price and I sent it to him. I enclosed copies of all the paperwork and emails describing the unit’s condition and the various repairs paid for. After he received it, he emailed me to advise that none of the work that I had paid for was done. Items that supposedly were replaced were not replaced. I had been scammed--twice. Inside, the unit was very rusty, almost as if it had been in a flood. It was so bad that he complained that he could not use it as the basis of a rebuild project, and we agreed on an adjusted price. When I totaled up all my costs for this little adventure, I had wasted about $600. By going to the local shop for the repair, I had undermined whatever position I had to take the first AU-717 back to the seller. So I must confess that I am a fool sometimes. Those who cheated me have more to confess than that. |
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. |
The costliest part of this audio journey for me is my inability to sell gear. I sure I'm not the only one afflicted with this disease. The upside is that I find Easter Eggs when I'm hunting for something in the house that is unrelated. Recently found three Hafler amps in a closet and a GAS amp (remember those?) in the attic. The only piece I ever sold was a Teac A-3340S 4 channel RTR, because I had two of them! Upon leaving college I "sold" a pair of B&O speakers to my room mate. They were very good at the time mid-70s.........costly yes, because I never got paid for them. |
I asked Stereo Fixers in Boca Raton and Music Technology in VA to "fix" the channel imbalance in my Luxman CL-32 pre-amp. They BOTH charged me a ton of money and "couldn't fix the problem." When I had my shop, if we could NOT fix something, we charged the customer the $20.00 "look-at" fee and nothing else. I guess times have changed with shops now charging lots of money for what they CAN NOT do. If I took my car to a shop and they could not fix it, I would never pay them, nor would they charge me other than a minimum "look-at" fee in my experience. Cheers! |
My biggest mistake was to buy to IsoAcoustics Gaia I with 220 lb limit. Although provided with a kit of different mounts, non was oassing to my speakers. On top a month later I got an attractive offer and upgraded my speakers to new ones with 400+ lb of weight. Now the beautifully built IsoAcoustics still stay at home in their nice exspensive boxes... |
I forgot this one, but it was almost made right. I went out into my shop one day and it was cleaned out. This was 6 years ago. My C22, 2 MC240, 4 TTs, 2 Reel to Reels, A foot locker of NOS valves (est value 25,000.) A handbuilt, 11 band, tube, parametric, EQ with 2 external 3 way crossovers. My stratherarn ribbon speakers. ALL the gear was packed in foul weather shipping crates. A lot of tool and other things too. The insurance paid 56k or something like that, The only big loss was the strathearn ribbon speakers, I couldn't find a source at the time. so they wouldn't replace the 6K or so for them, only depreciation of 2K or something.. BTW know who did it, told them they did it. A kid I helped out. It didn't go well for him. His bad ways caught up with him, sad... I did ok though, considering.. First and only time someones done that to me..Hurt my feelings... Yup sure did.. Helped raise that kid...Little turd... Regards |
50K in the red and counting, but each time I set aside solitary time to listen, I get goosebumps, especially if the tracks are well recorded. 40% of that was in retrospect unnecessary, but I remain convinced the cash was better spent than some guys I know who spent/spend similar coin on drugs/booze/women/poker/super bowl tickets etc. Although I must confess, women sometimes I can almost understand. |
@tinear124. I’ve got one that is similar. I was replacing a blown woofer in a set of “expensive” speakers. Removed without issue with a powered screwdriver... then upon reinstalling, the screwdriver slipped and yep... straight through the woofer. There have been a few others, mostly along the lines of spending too much money on cables etc... but the screwdriver through the woofer stands out. |
Well years ago I had a fight with my exwife I came home to find my audio system destroyed and thrown out side only about a grand. I have bought used equipment that was no good about 600 and a nice preamp that listed for 6000 new,that I got cheap like 500 of course it lasted about 4 months .Hey it's only money. |
Tons of costly experimentations, my latest decision is one for the ages, I decide to install a secondary system in my basement to let my wife sleep better while I could listen to live music level downstairs thinking that I could be happy with a basic system...read limited budget...God how naive... I’ve spent 2/3 of my initial budget on room treatment alone and I’m wondering where it will end. My wife still complaints that the music is too loud as well... |
I bought a pair of Carver Silver 7 tube monoblock amps at an estate sale. Paid $250 for both. Ive been offered $8,000. Each. I still have them. But my wife reminds that I can sell them, every time we need quick cash. i should never have let her see the text I got from the seller; the 23 year old kid who sold them to me at his grandfather’s estate sale. He still texts 3-4 times a year, asking if he can buy them back. At the time I bought them, I was the only looker. I told him they were “organ amps” from an old Hammond electronic organ... not worth much. So the kid is mad at me, my wife is mad at me. I have a big smile on my face, every evening at 6:30 pm.... |
Adding damping material tweak to my 15" woofers... when removing one of the woofers from the enclosure I dropped it resulting in the magnet moving and locking the voice coil... Slick move trying to get that final 0.001% improvement that killed a woofer that is no longer manufactured. So after 6 months trying 3 pairs of woofers w/ similar thiel parameters I finally landed on a solution with a minor crossover change. Note there is no damping material on the new woofers and I'm perfectly fine with that. Ugg. |
