Just to clarify my intentions. I am not a college student, nor am I seeking advice for a particular "college student" I'm 38 years old and have had an interest in audio and video since my early teens. Most of my focus was put into A/V systems in my 20s and early 30s, having lived in apartments and condos until 6 years ago. When I moved to a single family home I finally had the room to set up a 2 channel system, something I had wanted to do for a long time. I haven't updated my current system on my member profile for some time, but the equipment I had was my newbie 2 channel stuff from 5 years ago. When I look back at the equipment I have purchased over the years (several old components in various states of repair stacked in my basement) I realize many of the choices I made satisfied a desire at that time, but my money could have been spent more efficiently with items I could include in an upgrade path, later as part of a secondary system, or could recover maximum value on resale. When I look at the equipment that's out now and include my knowledge about where to spend my money, upgrade paths, etc I wish I could go back to my 15 year old self and say, forget about that Dolby Pro-Logic Receiver and get yourself a clean vintage Sansui... I thought this would be a fun exercise because I think we all would have changed our path if we could go back.
