Electrical meltdowns, chasing sonic perfection and buzzing vinyl – our readers reveal their biggest hi-fi mistakes

Those of you with good memories will remember we asked our readers to reveal their biggest mistakes in hi-fi for this month’s Ask The Reader column.

And while a lot more of the responses didn’t meet our PG-13 criteria than usual – we’re guessing as the frustration and urge to vent was a little too strong to avoid a few choice curse words – we did get a wealth of great stories and warnings come flooding in.

Many were very specific, at times blunt, regrets about specific purchases, including Facebook commentator Bart van Eesbeeck’s gruff (but no context given), “Upgrading my Dali Mentor 5 to KEF R7 (non Meta),” message.

But some were part of a wider trend, showing, at the very least, your misery is shared. Here are the top ones we spotted.

Electrical malfunctions

One of the most common nightmares we saw reported was electrical surges breaking hi-fi equipment. This was most explicitly articulated by Jarlath Mahon, who reported a particularly “doh” moment, where he forgot to unplug his hi-fi while getting work done on his house.

“Watching my electrician doing working floodlights, tripping the fuse board multiple times. It never occurred to me to unplug the hi-fi equipment in the separate building – my Sansui au8500 needed repairs.”

There’s a lot of buzz around vinyl

On top of this there was a common theme about vinyl in particular being a source of frustration, as well enjoyment, among our readers.

Most of these comments were fairly blunt and around unwanted buzz creeping into the sound, including Craig Thomas, who reported “trying to use vinyl on my NAD C350. No phono box I tried could give me a buzz-free listen” as his biggest nightmare.

Others, including AndyC405, followed up with slightly more detailed reports that also revealed how they fixed the problem.

“I think my biggest faux pas was to do with wiring – in this case the turntable. I had a hum on my turntable input for well over a year, which was driving me fruitcake. I could not for the life of me track it down. I changed cables, moved (heaven and) earths and so on, all the usual tricks. Nada,” wrote AndyC405.

"Then one day I was fiddling with the cables which drop down behind my Kallax unit and the hum disappeared. It turned out that the phono cable was picking up an induced hum from the turntable mains cable – but if I moved the cables to being at right angles to each other [...] then the hum disappeared. Lesson learned!"

AVRs seem to be a common cause of frustration

AVRs were the second hot topic among our readers, with many reporting issues using them for music playback as a primary source of frustration due to their complex set-up processes.

Reader rogue warr started the chain when he reported that “buying overcomplicated AV receivers to use” was his biggest mistake, eventually lamenting: “Older AVRs were more powerful and much easier to operate, without an engineering degree.”

What Hi-Fi? top fan and regular commentator David Jamison agreed, mounting a three stage attack on AVRs when used for music.

“[My biggest mistake was] relying on an AV receiver for serious music. One, they are now way too complicated to set up and get them to work properly. Two, they become obsolete too fast. Three, I've had a few develop troubles early.”

Spending too much

Fourth and finally, nearly all of you flagged the cost of hi-fi as a primary hi-fi pain point. Shane Maher kicked off the trend by lamenting the sheer cost of hi-fi, arguing that “walking into a hi-fi shop with a credit card” was his biggest mistake.

Repeat commentator mattpianist78 followed up by arguing that the cost is doubly dangerous, as it can make people make the mistake he did early on of: “Getting caught up in the futile box-swapping trap, and believing all the 'audiophile' BS. You don't have to spend big money or overcomplicate things to enjoy great sound and focus on the music.”

Our hot take

A lot of the nightmares and mistakes listed are personal and down to the specific hardware being used, so we can’t sensibly comment on many of them.

But we have to agree with the final point on cost. There is a growing amount of good, cheap hi-fi available, but even a few hundred down the drain for a product that doesn’t meet your needs is a steep cost for many of us.

That’s why we’ve documented the danger of swapping hi-fi out, just for the sake of it, especially if you haven’t gone to your local dealer and actually tried it out many times before.

Trust us, it’s always best to try before you buy, if you want to avoid potentially making a costly mistake with your next hi-fi purchase.

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