Sorry, it’s not me, it’s you?

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.

Not claiming to be good, just lucky.
The biggest risk was building DynaKits and SWTP's. But they worked out.
At least most stuff now daze comes with trial and return priviledges, because it WON'T sound the same @ home as in the shop.
The closest I came to disappointment was a channel out for years on a PS Audio Elite. About the same time that my BQII Panasonic speed switch pukedOh well, no air flange for awhile.
When I finally pulled the Elite out from the bottom of the stack it was only a dirty fuse clip.
All good.