Sorry, it’s not me, it’s you?

A little story about skiing, but it applies. Learning in the Canadian Rockies, my Dutch friend, Marty, obliged and took me up ever more challenging slopes at Sunshine and Lake Louise - what glorious slopes and God's majestic scenery!  :) 

I wanted to do moguls, and not waste time in learning. One time, I complained to Marty, "I'm doing a lot of falling!" He said, "If you're not falling, you're not learning!" I said, "You will never see anyone fall more than I will (translated; "I get it, and I"m going to push even harder.")

I did, and flipped forward, backward, sideways, but in three seasons I was skiing black diamond moguls! What a great time that was! Some of the most enjoyable times of my life.  

I have made many "mistakes" in speakers over the years; I can't remember them all. Most of them I rather enjoyed at the time, but would not be interested in now. But, I would not trade it for anything, because the payoff has been extreme. 

So, by all means, go ahead and make some "mistakes". Explorers make fantastic discoveries!    :) 

So that makes 2 1/2 audio geniuses, and the rest of us mere mortals.

That feeling of relief is the absolute best gauge of having done the right thing.  You can try to argue yourself into liking/keeping something, but if your gut is telling you otherwise...  For me, trying to imagine how I will feel if I take it back/send it back is the ultimate arbiter.

I had a substandard preamp for a number of years and didn’t realize it until someone here recommended I upgrade. They were right!

I’m happy not to be so insecure that I could never admit publicly I had even once made a poor purchasing decision! How pathetic and exhausting it must be to always have to be right.

I once purchased a tube amp that had a hum issue that I spent an entire year trying to remedy which led to incurring all kinds of supplemental expenses - electrician visits to check grounding, power conditioners, DC blockers, ground lifters, power cables, etc....nothing worked. I finally struck a trade deal with the manufacturer (who said nothing was wrong with my amp) that worked out well for me. That year was so frustrating but since then I’ve never had an issue like that again from my system. It was clearly a problem inherent to the amp but I did learn a lot from the process.

I took a Naim Nait 5 back after 30 days because t was starting to annoy me and there was a full value trade in offer if upgrading within a month, I traded it for Rega pre/power and got the cables included in the trade. I hadn’t done a demo of the Nait before buying it.
With speakers I’ve been able to borrow speakers from the demo stock of two local dealers to try at home before placing an order. The first set I borrowed were picked after an in store comparison but interacted with my room to sound very harsh (Focal Profile 918). They went back and I think it was the 4th pair of speakers, the second from another dealer that stayed (Thiel CS1.6). This home demo culture saves a lot of mistakes but is less common outside the UK. I’m in France now and when I asked for a demo from a local dealer I got a very funny reaction but he had neither the turnover nor the factory support to carry demo stock.