Sorry, it’s not me, it’s you?

No never as i know what i am doing.

I've owned lots of equipment over the years that I either didn't like as much as I thought I would and returned, and some that I liked for a while but fell out of love with once I got more familiar with them.  Receivers/amps, speakers, a couple of carts.  It's not necessarily a mistake, but just part of the journey to find what you love. 

I've had my current speakers for 30 years now, and have never been happier with the whole system after doing the VTA mods to my Dynas and refreshing everything. 

Hello 213runnin,

     Ah, the Parasound P5 preamp sure brings back memories.  I used one in my system for a few months as a temporary dealer loaner, while my VTL preamp was in the shop for a manufacturer’s internal upgrade. Overall, my reaction was the same as yours, a Big Sigh!
     I would describe it as awkward and annoying. Its presentation,was neutral but in the worst connotations of that word. It oddly made all the recorded music played through it sound neutral, like all the life, beauty and soul of the music had all been sucked out of it rather than letting it flow through unaltered and sounding naturally as good as the music and recording allowed.
     Here are a few other annoying and awkward qualities that I noticed about this preamp:
- While it had an attractive appearance, the component’s chassis seemed strangely to be about 50% larger than it needed to be.
- It had interesting and effective bass management controls but they were all awkwardly, inconveniently and annoyingly located on the rear panel of the unit.
- Apparently the remote was designed and made in Russia around the 1930s, based on its bulk, cheapness and lack of useful features
     Other than the exceptions noted above, I really enjoyed my brief time with this preamp. I’m just grateful that I spent no money on this preamp, it’s gone forever and that you so thoughtfully and kindly reminded me of my experiences with it.

Tim

@kenjit ,

"All speakers are a mistake. It's only a matter of time before you want something else."


True,  but getting something better is another matter altogether.

My worst mistakes were speakers that had nasty treble, usually overly sibilant. The problem was that I didn't find out til I turned the volume right up, but when I did it became difficult to ignore. 

The saddest case was with the Ruark Prologues. An otherwise wonderful loudspeaker that could have been even better with a decent tweeter. 

I've had a similar experience with headphones. Spending more will often get you less. Between £30 and £250 I can't say I've heard too much of a difference. The main action seems to be from the Sennheiser HD6xx and upwards to around £400.

Turntables were never a problem. Both the Rega 3 and the LP12 were better than their predecessors, even if the latter soon threatened to become a bottomless money pit.

1. I trusted my mother. I went to college. She said she would pack and ship my LP’s, less than 50, so I didn’t need to take them. Nope. Jogged a memory, I should have known better. When I was younger at summer camp, please send batteries, nope.

2. Went to Church Christmas Eve. Got ransacked while gone. They took my AR2x speakers, I’m still mad.

3. Pioneer 6x9 car speakers. Commuting to Philadelphia, 1hr 20 min each way for a while, I wanted to improve the sound in my 1961 VW Bug. They sounded fab in the store. Bought em, put them in the space behind the back seat, excitedly test, what the heck, no bass? Took em back to store: these no good! Guy says "Were they loose, or mounted in a panel? That’s when I learned about the back wave cancelling the front wave. Made a plywood panel, put em in, wonderful!

4. Waited, should have pre-ordered replacement tweeters. My son had some great parties here. EVERY time, they blew one or both Dynaudio D21 tweeters of my JSE Infinite Slope Model 2’s. They would hear nothing, juice the volume up, up, then figure out they had the wrong input. Bang, blast, burnt the factory tweeters. It cost him $60 or $120. each party. After research, I substituted a Focal tweeter, they could take a shot.

5. Trusted my evil stepfather. Mother divorced him. He took a collection of about 100 classical LP’s that had been my uncle’s. (my uncle died young, that’s when I inherited the Fisher President II console). Stepfather put them in storage in Maine. He agreed he should not have taken them, said he would drop them off with my mother. Lie, lie, lie. Then he stopped paying for the storage, the owner confiscated everything, nobody knows where they went.

6. Bought several used LP’s over the years, unknown artists, based on the cover design/notes. Some god awful. Now, I look stuff up on my phone when I need to.

........ other poor judgements I am sure ....