In my case it was the CJ-ET-3 SE preamp. Not dumping on CJ but it wasn't to my taste. Rolled off the top end and everything seemed to lack any dynamics. Tried various tubes but no luck. Also it would eat tubes had to change every nine months. Lots of pro reviews and pro comments from users but not for me. Big mistake.

mini dsp 2x4hd...above my paygrade for learning how to hook it up and use it.

The Nakamichi PA-7. I bought it to use as a reference standard for comparison. It's designed by the famous Nelson Pass of Threshold and Pass Lab. The amp is an improved version of his famous Threshold S300 power amp that put him on the map of the audiophile world. How can you go wrong??.........It's less than impressive. I can't even say it sounds better than my much cheaper Acurus 3X200. This is a case that name is much bigger than it's sound.


At the time, there was also a Krell KSA250 on ebay for $1895, I was really debating over those two. Problem is the Krell burns 1300W sitting at idle, it's a 250W Class A. I did't know when I can successfully design and build my own amp, I might have to live with it for a while. It's just too much power and too much heat generated. Then Nelson Pass is so so famous. So I decided on the PA-7. I regret this really regret this. KSA250 historically don't resale more than the smaller cousins because of the power wasted, but $1895 is the cheapest I ever seen till today. And, it's a Krell.

I regret finding AVS. The components followed after the fact.

PS Audio Directstream DAC -- sold that one within a week.

Martin Logan Montis -- they ended up sounding exactly like they looked: a panel on top of a cheap subwoofer. Disjointed and incoherent. Martin Logans SUCK for playing rock music.

Wow, I am surprised, those ML are not cheap!!! I heard they are very picky with the room and placement. Scott3886 has been talking about that in detail here.


Ha ha, we have 3 JM Lab Focal fan in this thread. Maybe we are biased. I have to hear the ML myself.

In ceiling speakers ... in retrospect, I should have skipped many of them in some areas or gone with bigger speakers in some rooms. Mostly this was a lack of foresight.

I regret buying Sonos products that did not get upgraded to airplay2... what an idiot I was thinking that they might be. My fault for making too many assumptions.

pro amplifiers for my media room - the fans on some of them were making a LOT of noise that I can hear from my media room closet to my master bedroom. These can be great robust products with built in PEQ (think mini-dsp inside an amp box) but damn can they be noisy. Again my fault for not finding more appropriate options.

Control4 automation setup for whole house audio. Too expensive for what it does, especially how many products have come out since then doing things a lot cheaper. I am glad that great options like airplay2 are arriving to really make this more affordable.

Next time you're in the neighborhood, give me a shout, and stop on by.

You have to hear them set up by someone who has a clue.

I'm still at it

https://www.avsforum.com/forum/173-2...-fix-room.html

Made some progress this time. I'd say one thing they do really well is WELL recorded rock music, and loud. Live recordings such as Humble Pie at the Fillmore or Cream at Royal Albert sound exceptionally real and quite good. Assembled studio recordings not so great. They can be seamless and coherent. More coherent than anything else that I know of, but getting there is quite a trip.

But frankly, the one purchase I regret is the Fartin Logans. Just too difficult in this room. They were great right out of the boxes in the previous house, but this one, what a bear, and a SOB.

I believe you. Even my speakers are so sensitive in the placement. I am loving it so far!!! The last adjustment was 2" towards the center and turn a few degrees just on the left speaker. I bet you even if you tell people, unless they actually spend the time playing with it, they will look at you strange.

I tell you, my big boss is not complaining so far. If I can leave it like this, I am good for now. But we already have a contingency plan of getting rid of the big hudge already, so it will be exciting when I finally have a bare wall to work with in the future.


I know you have been talking about all these. It's over my head for now. I am just very busy, the thing takes up a lot of my time is getting our first smart phone, learning how to text, send pictures and videos in texting!!! Also, the pcb of my 4th amp just came in. It'll be a busy Christmas.

I did another 5/100ths of an inch toe out this morning and that helped. I can see it immediately in the REW measurements. Got great mid-bass now, and it all was the distance between speakers, not fore and aft. Glad to finally discover that

This is still the BFD with ESLs

https://www.avsforum.com/forum/173-2...l#post57248438

This is also why you can so clearly hear any changes I make up the food chain.

You are almost as involve as me designing amps!!!


You get down to it, everything matters and it's very time consuming. It's not easy, but the improvement is astonishing. Believe me, if you tell me this half a year ago, I'd laugh!!! Sorry. But this is no laughing matter now. I wish more people would try it.

You've probably seen how much I beat people over the head with this

What measuring system/device/procedure do you use for such small adjustments?

I'm a commercial broker / small time developer. It's a Bosch laser measure for construction purposes. Accurate to 1/100th of an inch. My walls aren't that true, but I can still see where I was and where I am now so still useful.

I don't know that I have ever truly regretted an audio purchase.


But I suppose the closest I can think of would be my Z-Systems RDP-1 digital preamp/parametric eq.


At the time it came out it was top of the heap in terms of digital eq - utterly transparent, and quite powerful. I bought it intending to use it first as a pre-amp. Sounded a bit blah to me so that didn't work. As for the eq - my room just seemed to work so well with almost every speaker I bought I just never felt the need to start fiddling with adding the eq.
But I held on to it, year after year, as a sort of "safety net" as in "just in case I ever end up with a speaker that needs some eq." My audio buddy always asked when I was going to sell it and he would point out "you have virtually never used it in almost 20 years. You are NEVER going to use it!" I finally caved in and sold it several months ago.

I still need about a 1 1/2db cut at about 1.5k. Other than that, I'm pretty much there …. finally. 60+ years experience with ESL dipoles and this one just about got me.

Adcom GFP-1, their first preamp, introduced in the early 1980s. Beautifully constructed but with bright and clinical sonics that could make you grimace. Fortunately the company improved the sound quality in later models.

KEF Q15 bookshelf speakers. Voices sounded like they emanated from the bottom of a large echoey wood barrel. Hellooo down there...

Forgot I had one more:

The Border Patrol DAC SE.

There's even been some recent debate on this DAC in the last few months of Stereophile. I even fall more into the "musicality" camp in the "musicality vs. accuracy" debate but I just wasn't feeling this DAC. Too grainy in the treble, low clarity. It just sounded weird. And anyone who doesn't believe in break-in time should buy this DAC to become a convert as it took almost 3 weeks before the top end opened up on it. Thankfully they had a 30 day return policy!

For me, I'd have to go back to the early 90's. I had a Pioneer SX-737 receiver since the 80's that I loved. It was not expensive, but was the best I could afford in high school at the time. The Pioneer was only 35WPC, but it sounded great and the Phase-locked-loop tuner was awesome (you could tune far away from the station with the tuning knob and it would pull the station back in perfectly -- it was better than any tuner I've had since). After owning the Pioneer a long time, it finally died at a party at our house where somebody had it cranked to 11 for a long time.

I decided I would go for a much higher end preamp/amp to replace it, and ended up with a Adcom GTP-400 and GFA-545 on recommendation of a friend who had done a very long search before he chose Adcom for himself. It didn't even sound that good in the store, but I figured there was no way it could not be much better than my old inexpesive Pioneer. I was wrong. I hated the sound of that Adcom. I wanted so much to like it, I tried to convince myself I liked it, but it never sounded anywhere close to as good as the Pioneer, just sterile and dead. The Adcom tuner was also horrible in comparison to the Pioneer. I was running the Adcom with the same speakers, same speaker placement, same antenna, and everything was worse. I put my audio equipment into one of those storage lockers briefly while moving and it was broken into and I lost everything. I shed a tear for losing my old Advent speakers, but smiled a little bit inside to know the Adcom was gone. The theft was a financial loss, but not a sonic loss.

I had an Adcom GFA 555 back in the early 90s along with a Counterpoint SA220 and the mono block ARC Classic 150s and VTL300s. I also did not care for the Adcom or to lessor extent, the Counterpoint as compared to the ARCs or VTLs. Given the difference in price, theoretically it should have worked out this way. I don't list the Adcom as my worst purchase because I used it in another system and feel I got appx what I paid for.

So you bought a product and didn't take the time to try to learn it? Not everything is plug and play. Its one of the best $200 components you can buy. If you know how to use REW then minidsp is much easier to learn. Just follow the minidsp guide and its pretty straight forward. If you don't have the guide let me know and I'll PM it to you.

This is why I really hate those "everything sounds the same" and "blind test" comments when they come up on AVS. I've had a gazillion receivers, preamp/amps, AVR's, and AVR preamp/amp combinations over the years and not one of those combinations has sounded the same. When you've lived with equipment for a year or two, you know the difference, good or bad, when you plug in new stuff. My "internal bias" should have been a night and day slam dunk for the Adcom because it cost 5 times what it replaced, it was a decade newer, it was a separate preamp and amp versus a receiver, and it was a sizable investment for me at that time, but I hated it.

I had the resources back then to pretty much buy whatever I wanted (I wish I had some of that $$$ now) so I generally had the ability to do direct A vs B and long term comparisons between speakers, cables, equipment, etc, I spent much time going back and forth between amps/preamps using two sets of huge ESLs and a pair of Maggies. We also did blind testing, although it was single blind, but I could not see my helper so I'm pretty dead nuts sure of what I heard and was able to not only note a difference, but accurately note which component I was listening to.

But, But......you have not done the DBT and level matching, you don't know what you are talking!!! Ha ha ha ha ............


Seriously, I don't even think you can judge as well if you a being put on the spot to compare amps one after the other. You likely be trying so hard to pick out the difference that you miss the moon all together. That's the reason I have been talking about the best comparison is just use it, enjoy it. When you are not thinking about it, relax and listen, you notice more the difference. It's like when I wasn't compare, I put in a new amp and just watch tv. All of a sudden, I hear things different, it might sound sweeter, the sound seems more real, or I hear things I never experience before. That's when you can tell which one is better or which one you like better.



Even in comparison, I could hear the difference of singer voices that are different. Forget level matching, but the time you match everything, you forgot how the last one sound already!!! You just listen.


Last but NOT the least. Someone link me a DBT to prove amps don't mean anything. But then I read the article in detail. They tested all the high end amps with a $1995MSRP pair of studio monitor!!!! Testing a $10K with a $2K monitor??!!! Don't we learn to very first thing about buying a system, that you put AT LEAST half the budget into the speakers??!! that's the speakers is the most important piece in the system?? That the speaker define the sound of the system?? How can you tell the high end amps with so so speakers? This sure feels like politics to me, that we read about climate change........written by all the liberal professors in the universities....that make up the test to convince people that it is real. Until you have both sides testing the amps, you only hear one biased side of the story.


Also, be aware of the sour grapes factor.

"When you are not thinking about it, relax and listen, you notice more the difference."

See, this is another issue, that over time, something will grate on me if I don't care for it in long term listening. I admittedly haven't done instantaneous, proper level matched AB comparisons very often, but I've had also go the other way, where I found something that I thought I liked better during the AB comparisons irritate me long term. Most of the time I just think it's all in my head when I focus really closely ….. like what I've been going through here over the last week or so. I just use the measurements to confirm or not whether I just heard what I thought I heard. My advanced elderly age doesn't make this any easier. Geezers Rule !!!! Bullshinsky

I wanted to gouge my eyes out when I heard the Adcom, does that count as a blind test?

Being put on the spot and judge is not accurate. One good example is during the comparison, I like my second amp where the voice sounded fuller, seems to be better. But then when I put it into my system and use it. It just slowly creeped up on me that the voices are too deep and harder to understand. I didn't like it to the point I switched it out.