Were they Mission 770s? I listened to them at the time but went for my first Harbeth (HL Monitor Mk IIIs) instead.
A “Hi-Fi Answers” contributor wrote that “the MIssion 770s couldn’t sound good with divine intervention”. Mission was not pleased. 
Claude
Wow, I don’t ever recall such an exquisitely bad review! The most normally is that something is not quite as good as something else…
In the late 80’s I bought a Cyrus 1 amp from a dealer friend. The sound was awful but I did not have the heart to go back to my friend who had given me a good deal. I quickly part exchanged it for a Nait 1. What a massive improvement that was!
There’s an old hifi saying… it goes something like “You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your current setup is a load of crap”.
Worry not, @JimDog, you are not alone.
I bought a few duffers when I started out in HiFi without a clue, although part of that was poor matching. Cambridge CD3 in about '88 stands out though. Really boring. Took it back a week later and swapped it for an Arcam BB2/170 transport which was a relief, although at £900 it was still a waste of money looking back. Heard my first LP12 (with Kans) a year later, switched to vinyl and stopped wasting my money. Couldn’t afford Naim but bought an Exposure integrated with it. Was then sorted for about 15 years.
My regret was going from an 82/hicap to a 252/supercap dr
What’s to regret I hear you say. …
Just didn’t get on with it
Over the first month I grew to hate it…and indeed almost stopped listening to music
Glad they are gone…worth every penny I lost
Linn LK1/LK2. Should have spent more money and got a Naim combo for the Saras.
Regrets I have a few but then again too few to mention.
Some time in 1981 before I had Linn/Naim I decided that although I liked my Tandberg 310 cassette deck, that I really ought to swap it for a 3 head machine capable of playing tapes other than types 1 and 2. I sold it and bought a 3 head Trio deck. Big mistake, only rectified a few years later when i bought Sony Walkman Pro.
I would argue all the brands you mention are hifi and into the “audio engineering nonsense”. Maybe not at the level of your current kit (didn’t check), but still…
Purely on the basis of how my life changed and not the components themselves; I regret having my 250 DRed and buying PMC Twenty5.23 to replace my Twenty.23s.
If I had known two kids would come along in a small open plan flat, trash the speaker cabinents and rob me of 100% of listening time for the years after, I’d have saved the money and stayed where I was until they were older and we were in another home.
I regret not buying the NAC 552/NAP 500 in 2005 when they were relatively inexpensive.
They were once relatively inexpensive???
I regret buying a Creek Destiny. One day one channel just crapped out. I then had the pleasure of dealing with the US importer. It took Months to get it repaired. Never buy anything from them again.
And I really hugely regret selling my Record collection. Biggest audio mistake ever.
In the late eighties 901 Bose, need I say more?
Great bar & pub loudspeakers…
A whole host of mis -matching amps speakers from different brands. I regret is that I had ignored Simon at Audio T in Reading excellent advice and demo and bought a Naim set up right at the beginning - Naim Cd , Nait 3 or 72/140 with naim cables throughout. It would have saved a lot of time ,frustration and money!
First speakers purchase Mission 731LE instead of the JPW P1 auditioned alongside, reason, I thought they looked better…
My biggest regret was spending what was then a good deal of money buying a big glossy class A amp that sounded really good at the dealer but ran hot enough to cook eggs on and turned out to be very unreliable. In a short space of time it had to be repaired by the manufacturer twice, but weirdly each time it returned it sounded quite different - and each time it sounded like a shadow of its former self. I’m not going to mention the name of the amp or the maker, but I made a mental note not to buy anything else from them again.
This thread is quite depressing really. So many wrong purchases and wasted money on my HiFi journey… and this affliction hasn’t ceased.
With a clean slate and all that money back I’d do things differently. But then would we be happy if we all had our perfect system? tbh I think not. Part of the ‘attraction’ of HiFi as a hobby is constantly pouring money into it - isn’t it? 