What would you never buy again? What would you like to own again?

[walpurgis]

I should have added to my list.

Never again: Lowther speakers!

Definitely buy again: Mission 774 tonearm.

[Frazeur1]

Lets see here...a divorce about 13 years ago had me sell off all of a few systems and bits and pieces I had accumulated over quite a bit of time:

Naim:
CDS2
Nat-02
Nac-82
Supercap
Snaxo-2/4
Hi-Cap
Nap-250 X 2
Active SBL's
Naim ARO

Dynavector 17D
Linn LP-12/Valhalla

Pass Labs X-1 preamp
Pass Labs X150 amp
Wadia 302 CD player

Modified Magnepan MMG's
REL T-3 subs X 2

ATC CA-2 preamp
ATC SCM7
ATC SCM 20-2A

I liked it all for various reasons, yet I wouldn't have the active Naim system back, maybe a few bits and pieces of it, but that is it. The rest I would take back in a New York minute, especially the Pass Labs and Wadia gear.

Needless to say, my bank account has never fully recovered, but I am a happier man. And I really do love the gear I have now, so no complaints!

[Frazeur1]

I should add another bit of gear I had back in the early 80's that was just meh...But I strike it up to being heavily and easily persuaded at the time by dealer...

Carver C-4000 control console/preamp
Carver C-500 power amp

The power amp was the better piece of the two, to my ears as time would go, neither was stellar. Fun, but nothing special in the sonics department.

[p147]

Never buy again :- All my A/V gear wish I had stuck with 2 channel.
What would I like to own again:- Had a truly stunning Beard P50 power amp (lovely KT88 valves), and partnered with Beard P500 pre-amp, I believe all silver soldered. sold those to be one of the first buyer of the Beard BB100 integrated which was finished in gold and was truly a bling thing with the cage off and the valves alight, and finally my turntable which was an Oracle Audio Delphi VI Turntable adapted to take an SME series V Tonearm.
All of which I would love to own again.

[Neil McCauley]

Interesting post. We did a quick poll in the office and this is what we came up with.

Neil


Regret selling, in no particular order:

• Meridian 107 power amp
• Beard P100 mono power amps
• Beveridge RM1 preamp
• Pink Triangle with Breuer 8 Dynamic tonearm and EMT cartridge
• Lecson HL1 horn speakers
• Spendor BC3 speakers
• Dynavector cartridges
• Dynavector DV505 II tonearm
• A stacked pair of JBL Century 100 speakers
• Any Colin Wonfor-designed electronics
• LFD Dac3
• LFD PA3 mono power amps
• JBE deck with the Dynavector DV505 II tonearm
• Lentek transmission monitors (The Bert Webb era)
• An original A&R A60

Happy to never see again

• Anything by Nytech ie their early stuff
• Tresham power amp
• Hadcock original tone arm
• Naim active speakers; probably their first attempt
• Linn Sara speakers

[Macca]

Stacked JBL L100s? That must have ben fun.

[Neil McCauley]

Stacked JBL L100s? That must have ben fun.

Well yes, in terms of visceral thrill they were astonishing. However ... in terms of some audiophile aspirations such as depth of image, width of image, ability to provide detail at low volumes and so on, they were near hopeless. But, the experiment did provide a personal yardstick in that for the first time in my room I got a very respectable full height image. Since then, the majority of speaker systems have - for me - been deficient in this respect. i didn't realise how important this was, until then.

For hard rock, blues, blues-rock and some types of jazz the overall experience was very pleasurable. However, the merciless mangling of, for example, classical piano works by Bach and Mozart was astounding.

[Getgaff]

DID buy again
Logitech Transporter: Bought a used one for a bargain price, sold it earlier this year for a profit and regretted it. Then paid more to import a NOS SE version from the States
Jolida Glass FX DAC III: Again bought a used one, sold it to reduce box count and regretted it. Purchased a fully-pimped version from Robert (Opendoor) end of last year. Keeping hold of this one (for the time being at least)

Would buy again
Auralic Aries Mini: Upgrade to the Altair not being fully utilised
Oppo 105EU: Again the upgrade to the Oppo 205 not being fully utilised and I'm still reeling from the cost

Wouldn't bother with again
Oppo HA-SE2
Audioquest Dragonfly Red DAC
Meridian Explorer2 DAC
Sennheiser Momentum 1.0/2.0 on-ear/2.0 over-ear

Nothing particularly wrong with any of the above, I'm simply not an indoor headphone user. Just took a while to understand that.

[walpurgis]

Stacked JBL L100s? That must have ben fun.

Erm. I know what these sound like. Perhaps 'exciting' might be a better word than fun.

[Macca]

Well yes, in terms of visceral thrill they were astonishing. However ... in terms of some audiophile aspirations such as depth of image, width of image, ability to provide detail at low volumes and so on, they were near hopeless. But, the experiment did provide a personal yardstick in that for the first time in my room I got a very respectable full height image. Since then, the majority of speaker systems have - for me - been deficient in this respect. i didn't realise how important this was, until then.

For hard rock, blues, blues-rock and some types of jazz the overall experience was very pleasurable. However, the merciless mangling of, for example, classical piano works by Bach and Mozart was astounding.

I can guess the flaws as you say. I just have a soft spot for the Century as they were a constituent of the first really good system I ever heard and what got me into hi-fi as well as just music.