Anything worth doing takes time. And the more it matters, the longer it usually takes.
To wit: building a great hi-fi system isn’t a weekend project. It’s a journey—sometimes slow, often full of detours, and occasionally frustrating as hell. But for those of us who’ve walked that path, we know: the payoff isn’t just the sound. It’s the discovery.
I’ve been at this for over fifty years, and some days it still feels like I’m just beginning. My own system didn’t come together all at once. Not even close. It’s been decades of adding a piece here, a tweak there—sometimes moving forward, sometimes sideways. I’d fall in love with a component, live with it, only to realize months later that something still wasn’t quite clicking. Change one thing—and suddenly, the whole system feels new again. It still happens.
That’s the beauty of this hobby. Each improvement peels back another layer—not just in the recording, but in yourself. You start to learn what draws you in, what gives you chills, what makes you forget you’re listening to a system at all. And that kind of knowledge doesn’t come overnight.
So take your time. Make mistakes. Keep tweaking. Keep listening. That’s where the joy is.
Because no matter how long you’ve been doing this, The music always has something new to teach you.
