At what point do you give up on a project?

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I have been working on a pair of Dynaco MkII's for almost 2 years now. I built them using the Curcio Premium Setup bare boards, and stuffed them to my liking. I have built perhaps 35 tube projects over the years, including a premium Dynaco ST70 and seven other Curcio modded projects. Never have I experienced something as frustrating as these Mark II's.
It started like any other project in Sept of 2003. That's right..two years ago. I deconstructed the amps, sent the tin off to be powdercoated, ordered the boards, tubes, and guts. I had both amps back together in less than two weeks. I powered them up, and the test voltages were off. I checked and rechecked everything, walked away for a week, replaced all the semi's (multiple times) replaced the power transformers, had the output tranys tested. Same problems, identical with both amps. I set them aside for almost a year.
In Oct 2004, I was listening to my premium modded ST 70 , and the gears started to turn in my head. Wonder what ever happened to my premium Mark II's? I dug them up, deconstructed them completely, ordered all new parts (resisters too), and went back to work on them. I fired them up, same problems, both amps. Contacted Joe Curcio to find that due to an error in the manual, I am testing for the wrong voltages at the wrong points on the boards. He corrected me, and I looked back at my notes to find that I did indeed have the correct voltages after the first build. However, at this point, NONE of my voltages are correct. I sent all the boards in for testing and repair to Curcio, and for just shy of $300, they got a clean bill of health. I installed them, and all the voltages were once again wrong. I went through a few months of troubleshooting, and once again replaced all the IC's and voltage regulators. Failure.
I contacted Joe again, and he agreed to have a look. I found out this weekend that I had made a wiring error. Unfortunately, the cost to repair it was just not worth it to me. I added up the total expense to this point on the pair of Dynacos, and it comes to a little over $1900. The latest repair estimate, with shipping, would put that figure at $2350. Joe was kind enough to offer a $50 credit on the repair, but I declined. I have had enough.
I spent an additional $200 to find out that I didn't want to repair the amps. Mostly, because I don't think I would ever enjoy listening to them. A project that was undertaken to release stress encountered from owning a growing business and leading a busy life, ended up making me very angry and pissed off at everything and everyone around me. It was not fun. It was not satisfying. Making the decision to end this project has brought me enormous relief. I just wonder if I should have pulled the plug sooner! I actually got up and LISTENED to some music this morning. I really missed that.

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Topic - At what point do you give up on a project? - Patrick 13:28:56 10/09/05 (7)

Re: At what point do you give up on a project? - Patrick 13:11:16 10/10/05 (1)

If you have not sent them to Joe yet - Russ57 05:34:55 10/11/05 (0)

Wow! - What a set of stories here! Really ... - PureAudio 07:30:52 10/10/05 (0)

i know how you feel - avian 04:32:51 10/10/05 (0)

Re: At what point do you give up on a project? - pkell44 19:35:26 10/09/05 (0)

Re: At what point do you give up on a project? - mikee55 15:32:23 10/09/05 (1)

Re: At what point do you give up on a project? - pkell44 09:10:36 10/11/05 (0)

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