If you started over what would you do differently?

i would have headed straight to the Shindo aisle

while in college i didn't have a turntable and therefore no space for a record collection, so i figured i would get more records when i graduated. upon graduation i rushed out to buy a new reel to reel, a thorens TT, and some mid-fi electronics.
but i didn't forsee the disappearance of classical alblums until it was a few years too late, and the huge variety of available music was dwindling quickly. as i began to build a cd collection instead, it became apparant that some of the cd's sounded A LOT better (or one might say alot worse) than others. so i wasted some money upgrading recording quality while regretting that i already knew which vinyl records were considered top grade (these were the "$5 records" when i was in high school), but they were long gone. from wall to wall stacks of them (with no real money to spend) to cut-outs and re-issues to nothing. well, at least we had the opportunity to spend a small fortune on equipment that would make the cd's sound tolerable- lucky us!

For me, I would avoid package equipment from the mass manufacturers, read the forums at Audiogon, get an audio guru, learn the difference between open and transparent vs flashy and hot and spend a lot of time listening to live music to know what real music sounds like. Then I would gather up a budget, treat out a room and buy equipment to last a lifetime. I certainly would have gotten a turntable immediately. I didn't.

I would have ignored HOME THEATER or atleast kept it modest and focused on 2 channel. I am 36 and right when I was making good money and out on my own the whole Dolby wave hit and I sadly invested a pretty penny in it.
I do enjoy a good movie and the surround sound my system brings, but boy if I only knew what would matter when I grew up..............................

I would have avoided the constant digital upgrade hunt, and bought a forgiving and modest CD/sacd player.(like I now own) I would have invested all other money into my vinyl source.
I would have paid closer attention to the Speaker/amplifier relationship.
I would have spent the most money I could on finding the best preamp I could.
I would have bought Thiel CS7.2s first and been done with speaker choices.