Words From the Wise

The only person who has to be happy with your system is you.

A handful of lessons from my experience:
1) In addition to the obvious dealers to avoid, beware of those who are passionate about a product that is not captivating to you. Your ears are right. If a dealer trys to tell you what you like, don't buy from him or her. In fact, if using a dealer, its good to audition several before making any buying decisions at all.
2) If you are buying retail, listen to the product at home in your system before buying it. If the dealer will not accomodate this, then its a red flag. If you insist on considering it without a home demo (preferably without the dealer present), then listen to it for at least a couple of hours at your dealer. Over two hours a) your dealer will get tired and leave you to make up your own mind and b) the initial blush of something new and exciting will begin to fade and you will begin to actually hear the component. The longer the audition, the better.
3) Magazine reviews, for the most part, are rubbish. Those that are accurate are impossible to separate from those that are not. Almost all component reviews are positive. Why? Because, a) reviewers get paid via advertising and b) if, during the course of the review it becomes apparent the reviewer is not enthusiastic about the product, the manufacturer may withdraw it from the review. Informal bad reviews happen, but formal bad reviews don't get published. If you must read and rely on a review, take any negative comment found in the review and multiply its weight by a factor of one billion.
4) When doing a demo at a dealer and you think you like the product, its very important to a) find out whether the dealer has made a modification to the product and b) make sure the dealer has roughly matched the product to similarly priced gear. Dealers love to, for example, put megabuck cables and power conditioners on lesser gear.
5) Before buying any tube amp, find out what it takes to change the tubes and bias the amp. Most are easy, but there are a few knuckle-heads such as the old EAR534. Having said that, dollar for dollar, a tube amplifier is generally your best bet for musical amplification.
6) If a product is foreign made, make sure it has a well established repair facility in North America (unless you don't mind shipping it overseas someday). The heavier it is, the more important this becomes.
7) Before shipping to or buying from another country, make sure that you and the other party are in agreement about the declaration value and who will pay the duties.
8) One of the most common system shortcomings is a sonically hot or harsh high end. If so, don't let your dealer or otherwise tell you that a) its not, b) it just sounds realistic, c) you are just unused to all the detail it provides, or d) its not a system problem - its your room.
9) If you ever receive a request to pay via Western Union, its probably a scam.
10) If you ever get a "second chance" offer from somebody on EBay on a product that you bid upon and did not win, it may be a scam. Thieves like to "cut" ads for unsold items and "paste" them into emails that appear very legit.

That is my .02 cents. Jeff

First of all...RUN!!! Get out of this hobby ASAP! It will leave you bewildered, obsessed and broke. Otherwise it is really cool! Seriously, my advice is as follows:

1. Trust your own ears. Never let anyone intimidate your opinion by making you feel like you "should" have heard something.

2. Enjoy the music. If you let it, this hobby will turn you into a tech-oriented buff that only plays test CDs. The audio system is secondary to the music..always.

3. Impress yourself. It is nice to impress your friends, but, this can lead to purchases that don't suit you the best. It does not have to CRANK so the neigborhood can hear it to be impressive. In general, those systems aren't.

4. If you are into LPs and turntables, then the front end is the most important. Otherwise, the speaker/room and speaker/amp interfaces are the most important.

5. I like tubes. It is just my preference. I like sensitive speakers, even before tubes. You must find what you like and then forget the upgrade path for a while.

Davey Crockett said, "There ain't no ticks like poly-ticks, bloodsuckers all!"

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1) Proper speaker placement supplemented by acoustic room treatments patiently and accurately applied is the single most important component in your system. Period. More than which speakers, which source components , or what amp/ pre-amp combination.
2) Really clean, powerful available power into your system is usually overlooked until most people have some serious bucks into most of the other "stuff". This is a mistake. Provide dedicated power if possible, or at least seriously conditioned/cleaned up electricity available for your equipment. The difference is startling.
3) Tubes just sound more natural than solid state and should be in either your pre-amp or power amp (preferably both), or in a nice tubed integrated [at least] (if that's your path at the time) to really appreciate how uncanny a home system can sound.
4) "Reasonably good" speakers and "reasonably good" signal sources will sound absolutely outstanding (way better than you would have ever believed possible) if you make sure you've done #1,#2,#3 above first... ("Really good or better" speakers/signal sources will absolutely blow you away if.... you you've done #1,#2,#3 above first...).
5) Approach the hobby with more respect than you would an addiction ("Upgrade-itis") where you'll find yourself saving up again and again for your next purchase. This I know only too well. Try to enjoy each step of the way and linger there as long as you can.
(Final comment) Sitting in the listening chair late at night...when all the synergy of your system aligns like the planets in the sky... is like no other connection you'll ever know... it's called "Bliss".