Being a former Sony HI-Fi owner, I felt the need to post in this thread. Might be a long post so readers beware.
My journey into amplifiers and speakers started 35 years back when a good friend passionate on the subject convinced me to let him put together a stereo setup for me. Had to beg my dad to finance the project. Finally convinced dad and thus the project started with him showing me diagrams of stuff that I did not understand. This was the first time I was hearing words like Woofer, Tweeter, super-tweeter (yes we had them back in the days) etc.
To cut a long story short, Philips dome tweeter with it's own amp, some 8 inch woofer with it's own amp connected to a sony cassette player.
My initial impressions, Wow !! what treble.. Not a lot of bass though but the treble was enough to bring my friends over to show off my system.
A few years down the line, I came across a Sony 1500 watt PMPO system in a shop in town and I was blow away by the sound and power produced by this unit. It as a sub given away free with it. Price - 35,000 rupees. I had just started working so I could now afford to buy this. I was mighty impressed with this system. It even had surround sound.
I had another friend who was making speakers as a business on the side. Upgrade bug had hit me and I wanted speakers with larger drivers. So, I told him to made a pair of speakers for me with at least 10 inch drivers. I told him about my 5 inch sony sub and he laughed.
What he told me I will never forget. He said, don't get into this Hi-Fi world. You will never stop upgrading. You will never be satisfied. Be happy with your sony !!!!
Nonetheless, purchased a pair of speakers from him with a 10 inch woofer as was my requirement. Connected it to my sony amp. Oh my, the music was different. I was hearing quite a bit of mid-range
Something that the sony speakers lacked. Somebody said, boom boom tich tich. Well that was Sony.
A few years down the line, I purchased a pair of Quad 12L2 bookshelf speakers for around 40 odd thousand. Now these tiny speakers sounded similar but more refined than my massive floor standing speakers with 10 inch drivers. I was amazed at the tech involved and the quality of the drivers and the crossovers. Even with my sony amp these were sounding wonderful.
Lizard got into sony amp and it blew. In came Topping TP60. Yes the chip amp that was put down in quite a few threads in the forum
Again, wonderful sound when played within its limits.
The point I am trying to make is that, this audiophile hobby is a journey. At one point in time, we will think that what we own is the best there is. As we grow older and as our tastes in music also grows, a time will come when boom boom tich tich will not do it any more. And if we ever get caught in the chase, as most of us in this forum are, god save us all