Where do you draw the line with audio gear purchasing?

Speaking for myself, there is no line, only guidelines. My guidelines seem to change based upon storage space and cash flow at the current time. Over the years I have bought and sold a fair amount of gear, but the most important guideline I put in place was to make sure the gear was functional and needing minimal effort to at least double my money if sold. Obviously some gear did not adhere to that, but the rarity and retail value had an effect on those purchases. I still have most of the gear that applied to. Two years ago my situation changed, minimal storage and funds. I currently look for gear as much as always, but now I try to limit my purchases to more TOTL gear and/or things I plan on keeping. I guess that we all have different situations and self imposed guidelines in place, so just be smart and enjoy the hobby for what it is, freakin awesome!

Great thread topic by the way.
 
Interesting thread.

I am still working and an empty nester with no debt so now enjoying more disposable income than ever. I am going to continue to buy and sell and trade because I want to experience more gear and continue to learn.

I have few hard preferences although I don’t really care for the sound of horns, love vinyl but don’t dislike digital, both SS and tubes or ok with me, will probably stick with 2 dedicated stereos (one vintage, one not) as long as I have the room for it.
 
Lately I'm drawing the line at how much time I have to put into something to get it ready for what I like to call "unfettered listening" which is to say that it will be as easy to use as a new component. I am working a lot of hours and as much as I enjoy restoration and fiddling with stuff in general, these days I just want to hear music. I don't want to chase down a hum.

So the line is about two hours of work. More than that and it's a hard pass.
 
I have a small collection of gear so I don't buy willy nilly (I can't anyway, I've got no space). I look for condition, if it's got the box and manuals, stuff like that. If I've got one already that's not as nice that one gets moved on and the new one takes it's place. Most stuff over 30 years old will need to be restored so I don't worry so much about function. If it's pretty and not working it's worth restoring rather than beat but working for now. That would end up a parts unit.

For my main system, nothing gets moved in unless it will make an improvement.
 
I look for things I have not had before. I usually won't pay more than I can get for it if I don't like it. No AVRs or tape decks. As for wpc, as long as it is 20 or above that is fine.
 
I look for things I have not had before. I usually won't pay more than I can get for it if I don't like it. No AVRs or tape decks. As for wpc, as long as it is 20 or above that is fine.

There are very few tape decks I will buy. Anything Nakamichi is an exception. I buy AVR's if they are cheap enough and interesting enough which means TOTL only. AVR's can be a tough sell and for not a lot of money so boycotting them is understandable.
 
There are very few tape decks I will buy. Anything Nakamichi is an exception. I buy AVR's if they are cheap enough and interesting enough which means TOTL only. AVR's can be a tough sell and for not a lot of money so boycotting them is understandable.
AVRs seem to be like the Jack of all trades, master of none. They are ok for lots of things, great for nothing. That's the turn off for most it seems.

They get no consideration for purchase from me.
 
My Denon AVR ($30) has been performing admirably in place of the Luxman R-1120 since it died.
Sure the lux sounded better, but not when it won't turn on.
In hindsight, having an older 120 watt non-HDMI surround AVR sitting in the closet was a life-saver until i can come up with the $500 repair money.
 
Speakers....."west coast" only. Vented cabinets only. Large bookshelf only. Cast aluminum basketed drivers only. No horns. This criteria must br met for me to consider buying.

^^ This is too funny, I don't mess with horns either, and all my speakers have cast baskets. All!

I have to ask, do run 110's? If so, are they the A's? I ran a few sets for years, loved them.

I have 2 pairs, neither are the A version.

They are a favorite of mine for sure.
 
If it's ugly, I don't buy it. Even if it's supposed to sound great, it has to be easy on the eyes as well.

The only exceptions I can think of are chip amps which are 'unprepossessing' but so small it doesn't matter.
 
It will cost a ton of money to better what I have, so it's not just pocket change to bring something else home.
If I have really nice expensive gear it takes some thinking to buy.
That`s my situation, and mind set too 4-2-7.




And this^^^
But the record store gets me sometimes. Every once in a while I see something there that's high end good equipment that will be needing me to open my wallet.
 
My line is:

No vinyl. I'm not messing with it again. Snap, crackle, and pop? Nope. Sold my TT in '05, and that's it. I hated the negatives to vinyl from day one.
No real cheapie stuff, and no insanely expensive stuff either.
No horns.
No power cable magic.
No interconnect magic.
No speaker cable magic.
"Magic" = $$$$ cables.

Prefer sealed speakers, but most of the ones I own are vented.
Soon: Sealed Sub.
 
There are very few tape decks I will buy. Anything Nakamichi is an exception. I buy AVR's if they are cheap enough and interesting enough which means TOTL only. AVR's can be a tough sell and for not a lot of money so boycotting them is understandable.

I have an AVR for movies/Playstation etc but I dont buy them because they dont interest me beyond that. I dont buy tape decks because I dont have or use cassettes. I like things I will actually use and dont buy things to sit on a shelf forever. The vintage market in my area has had the bottom fall out in the past 6 months so where I used to pick up stuff to flip, that has pretty much stopped. The indie record shop I sell vintage speakers to has stopped buying because he is sitting on tons of inventory he cant move. I have had my eye on a pair of Marantz Imperial 5 speakers in a local thrift but they have them priced at full market value and they have been sitting for months. I have had my set of Sansui SP 1000s for sale for two months at a rock bottom price and have had one or two nibbles but otherwise nothing.

I like buying things and using them for a while then selling them, but if I cant at least break even on them then I dont buy........and that is where I am now.
 
Good question. I am facing the issue right now. There are two things that I want but do not need - a high end cassette deck and a pair of the new JBL 100 Classic speakers that JBL has announced. I have six stereo systems in my house now, in various rooms. I don't need any more equipment but ........
 
I have 2 pairs, neither are the A version.

They are a favorite of mine for sure.


Yea they are some of JBL's Best. They can handle some power too!

If you like the sound stage of the 110's you should give a set of Decade 26's a go if you have not already. Sound stage is on par with the 110's yet out of a 2 way. They are a little warmer (in a good way). I actually like the 26's over the 110. The cabinets seem to be better built. The 10" drivers are cast but they don't have the "fit and finish" as most JBL Drivers of that time did. Don't let that fool you, the 125A driver holds its own. I've had quite a few different sets of JBL over the years, for smaller JBL the 110's and the L26's are by far my fav. The 4401's are quite nice too... recently let a set of them go for some B&W DM12's.
 
Not much of a line for me yet other than my wallet. ALTHOUGH I'm getting a lot closer to "settling down" for awhile...I think, anyway (famous last words). I definitely don't hoard, more like "churn." Try something for a year or so, move it on, hopefully for close to what I paid for it. I've never kept really anything extra around, I"d rather spend it on something I can use. At one point I had 4 systems. Then down to 3 for awhile. Now down to 2 systems - it was going to be one system but right at that time I had a speaker issue in my main system...luckily I still had the 2nd system around as "fill in" duty and at that point I decided to keep two systems. One main system, one office system. Anything in the main system goes down, the office system gets bumped up to the main system to fill in. The office system is modest but IMO still sounds darn good...good enough for main system fill-in duty.

I do have a bit of an amplifier issue right now...4 power amps laying around, only one being used, 1 needs repair, 2 for sale...I've never had this happen before...I'm not even a power amp kinda guy...but here we are...

If I buy these days, it either has to be a "steal" price or something on my "wish list" at a good price, that is a step up from what's in my main system. As my main system has improved, it becomes harder and harder to do that. As I'm "only" about 5 years into this hobby, there are still a lot of brands and types of gear that I've never owned or even HEARD, so plenty of opportunity to explore yet, but I'm more careful about what I buy now....there has to be a purpose and a great price, and preferably an audition, but if the price is good enough, I'll try without hearing.

It's so easy to ramble on this topic! Bottom line for me is basically:

- don't break the bank
- purchases should be a clear step up, on the "wish list" or brands/types I've yet to hear and am curious about, at good/steal prices
- very limited extra gear around...ideally none, as I can take the 2nd system offline to fill in for the main system
 
Not viable. Sometimes opportunity knocks on you without you looking for it.

And even still, ebay and cl are at your fingertips. Any audio guru will want to peruse the listings.




Kinda sounds like you are still looking. That's Cool I still do too!


Just know if you don't look you don't buy as much by a big factor.
 
My line is:

No vinyl. I'm not messing with it again. Snap, crackle, and pop? Nope. Sold my TT in '05, and that's it. I hated the negatives to vinyl from day one.
No real cheapie stuff, and no insanely expensive stuff either.
No horns.
No power cable magic.
No interconnect magic.
No speaker cable magic.
"Magic" = $$$$ cables.

Prefer sealed speakers, but most of the ones I own are vented.
Soon: Sealed Sub.

Hey @hemiram

What table were you running?

"hated the negatives to vinyl from day one".

^^

Did you not grow up listening to vinyl? (I caught the tail end of it in the 80's with my folks). I got into it about 10 years or so ago, and have never looked back. (just me)

Something tells me that if you sold off your table in 05, and "hated the negatives" from the beginning, you may not have been aware of all the negatives from the start.

I ask not because I'm trying to convince you, but I had the same experience. Originally it was ok, and I picked up a few albums that I wanted, was running a used Pioneer PL12. (Super low buck). For a few years I always thought it was just "OK". Then I was given a good cart by a fellow AKer and that improved the SQ, started reading up on tables in general and went down the rabbit hole. What I've learned was isolation is key. I still have the PL12, sounds great now that I have put some work into it. Not sure what table you were running but If I guessed it was probably a vintage used table.

With proper de-static, and isolation of the table/arm and LP can and will best most formats. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy my CDP, nothing will replace it. But if properly set up, and LP can sound better/different to some ears. I can say its a lot of work and learning. But not so bad, and its worth the learning to get the best SQ out of an LP...

:)
 
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