Life is too short to buy someone else's favorite stereo gear

Life is too short to buy someone else's favorite stereo gear

I want to buy the tee-shirt!

Before developing our own preferences based on experience, we tend to rely on the expressed preferences of others. Even later, after we have your own body of sonic evidence to draw upon (via buying & selling gear), other people's preferences are often the only way to assess some higher-level/more complex audio design with which we have no experience.

Early on I learned to read between the lines of reviews & user comments, picking out nuggets that signified something to me, that in some way resonated with my own knowledge. And especially with user comments, one must do some compiling & refining to detect trends (potential truths) across a range of comments.

I disagree.  I buy only used based on reviews and input from Agon members (and a once every three years a visit to AXPONA).  My system-- Magico, ARC, Merrill Audio, Feickert, Reed, Ortofon, Esoteric was purchased for 40% or less off of list.  Doing your homework works.  In 20 years I have only regretted two purchases-- KEF 201/2s and a Modwright amp that could not drive Thiel 3.7s. But there is no doubt I love those people that buy from dealers and absorb the initial depreciation.
   

This is one of those rare times I'm going to agree with a sweeping generalization in regard to audio gear. Whatever some may suspect of OP's motive, he nailed a basic truth. 

Really ,I guess my time is near ,I buy used stuff all the time.Thats the only way I can effort  it.