Does Anyone Else Member the Golden Age of Audio Insults and Product Degradation?

Seems that Schiit Audio has the perfect name to participate in this thread

Douk is a close second if you add a ‘Y’  (Douky)

Conrad's Johnson

NAD - No Audio Delivered 

NAD. Not again dam-it.

That’s original.  Haven’t heard that one.

I’m surprised no one’s come up with “Disqualified” for the Dalqhuist DQ10.

Magnavox-Maggot Box

Another version of McIntosh-Macintoss. 

Grundig-Gruntpig

GoNAD

I am sure there are others....

@lou_setriodes 

i have a greater appreciation now of what NEC brought to the world of high performance audio.

thanks again for sharing.

@waytoomuchstuff 

I thought the NEC T-710 tuner was every bit as good as the highly rated B&K TS-108 that I had just prior to the NEC, if not better.  Although, I never heard the A7 or A10 integrated amps, they were very robust and well built units and also were well regarded.

NAD = Nearly Always Defective 

@lou_setriodes 

Looks like you've exposed some gaps in my knowledge base.  Glad your experience with the NEC gear was a possible one.  I've now adjusted my opinion towards NEC with a little help from my friends.

Thanks for the comments.

I had a great, under the radar tuner from them, the NEC T-710.  The A-7 and A10 integrated amps looked great too as did those mono blocks, M50’s I think?

@boothroyd 

Thanks for the comment.  I remember NEC and they never moved the needle very far on my "cool stuff" meter.  Not Electronically Competent in my opinion.

In the later ‘80 when NEC was pimping video products, their failure rate quickly earned the reference of Never Ending Crisis 

@lou_setriodes 

That”s a new one for me.  I feel (a little) smarter now.

I forgot this one:

B&O stood for Barely Operational, not Bang & Olufsen

@lou_setriodes 

Good stuff.  Thanks for sharing.

John

I sold audio gear in retail for a couple of years in the early 90’s in the suburban Philadelphia market.  Here’s a few things I remember:

1.  NAD stood for “Not Always Defective”

2.  Sony ES stood for “Extra Sides”  (Our store carried the regular Sony line, but an audio store competitor a few doors away sold the ES line.  Anyone asking for Sony ES, we told them it was exactly the same gear we carried with Extra Sides.

3.  Customers always came in asking for Bose because of the incredible name recognition.  “No highs, no lows, than it must be Bose!”

@cd318 I'm with you on the Schitt Audio thing. I think they really missed some "marketing opportunities" to leverage their name to promote the brand.  A few in the long list of possibilities:

GIVE-A Schitt:  Gift Card

Schitt TOGETHER: Cables and interconnects

DEEP Schitt:  Subwoofer

Schitt STORM:  Power amp

Im pretty sure I won't be getting a call from the folks at Schitt Audio seeking my advice.

On the subject of product reviews, here's one of my most memorable comments.

I've lost some of the details over time.  Maybe someone can help fill in the blanks?

It was probably around 1980, and a major manufacturer introduced a new power amplifier utilizing "cutting edge technology" developed by another company that had questionable credentials an was not well received by the audio community for its sonics.

After spending some quality time with the amp, the reviewer, not exactly blown away with its performance, wrote:

"It looks like they copied the Titanic with the hole already in it, and headed out to sea."

Here's a little on topic/off topic story.

Back in the late 70's the dealer "sound rooms" often used sliding glass patio doors to seal them off.  Vendors were happy to provide stickers with their logos on them, which we proudly displayed on the outside of the glass.

One day, while inside the sound room, a customer was staring at the glass door from the inside with a very confused look on his face.  

A little more time transpired, then he just couldn't hold back his comment:  

"I've never heard of A-HA-MAY."

True story.

We seem to be living in an entirely different age now that the name NAD no longer raises even a faintly embarrased smile.

Oh well, there's still the mention of Schitt Audio to slip in if the dinner conversation gets a little dull.

On second thoughts, maybe not.

Funny, the best sounding setup I heard in 40 + years that I owned was from a Stromberg Carlson integrared Amp.  I owned it until a tube shoted and smoked it.  I was kicking the heck out of a pair of JBL Lancers with the aquadag woofer.  I kicked mysel for decades not fixing the SC. I remember fondly Magget boxes!  I studied tube technology in tech school. The LEDs just hit the market. Stereos were either tube, or hybid. No ICs. TTL was born, gate to gate, then the 8080. Ventage 1957, I saw many changes. What was the knock for Crown from the late 70s, 80s?  Mine sounded great for 45yrs. Still decent, just aged out.

And, this one:

"I Sherwoodn't want to own a piece of that gear".

@secretguy Wow!  Sounds like you've got a nice piece of racing memorabilia there.  Congrats!!  I just hauled 3 boxes of LPs from my big brother's basement.  I'm pretty sure that album is in there somewhere.

I recall going to Radio Shack and Lafayette Electronics as a kid for electronics parts. They were competitors that used to call each other “Laff-a-lot” and “Radio Shaft”, respectively.

Heh.

Muzac for the masses...an Alexis in every pot...Siri sings the hits whether you want it to or not....

"Siri, shut up."

I’m sorry, I can’t do that...

"You’ve played the same thing for over 35 hours.... You can’t get bored, but we do...

Exactly...*weird cackling laughter*

Musical Fidelity > Musical Fatality

MacInCrash....Crapple...HewnLitInPractical...

...and then, all the 'made-up' names, esp. Rx drugs....

"Not sold to real people..."

More Trance Marantz.....Infectious Infinity...'Bro's Bose...

Why did we stop?

Did we? *L*

So much to make fun of, too much time wasted doing so... ;)

Wow 39 responses....and no "McIntrash"? Glad I could help ;-)

I once returned a Micro Sekei turntable to a dealer who without hesitation hurled it on the floor and proclaimed “Another Micro Turkey!”

The most contentious UK magazine was probably The Flat Response which later morphed into Hi-Fi Review in the 1980s.

It was edited by one Chris Frankland who certainly had strong opinions about audio equipment. I recall reading that the SME arms got short shrift as did many 'exotic' cartridges.

CF seemed to genuinely prefer the Linn Basik arm and cartridge. (Neither of which were built by Linn).

I can only imagine how such opinions might have gone down in certain places such as Celestion whose SL6 and SL600 also took a real hammering.

When you see how tame reviews are now, lord knows how they got away with it back then.

Anyway, there's a great background article to the whole shenanigans linked below. Interesting to hear that Linn once employed blind listening tests themselves!

-------

The Flat Response Magazine  by Tom Tom Audio  Nov 28, 2017

http://thetomtomclub.ning.com/m/blogpost?id=6506457%3ABlogPost%3A9465

I never knew any funny comments about the Dalqhuist DQ - 10's so I'll make one up - the speakers w/ the Don't Quit crossovers - so complex w/ many mediocre parts & drivers. I know they were amongst the first speakers to address the concepts of time & phase alignment & sounded good in some ways but I didn't find the high or low ends convincing, especially when pushed loud. 

Besides the equipment specific quips, I think that some of that attitude is alive and well today on this board but thats okay by me. Those Harry Pearsonesque type put downs, as long as they’re witty and not too mean or directed. The last one that was directed at me I thought was a hoot. The discussion was about updates to a turntable that I was quite familiar with and the person asked about possibly earlier factory updates and I made a suggestion. Then this other person chimed in and didn’t so much suggest as he said I’m wrong and he’s right. I told him that some long-standing dealers of the said table thought the same as well as friends of mine who thought the same. Well, Mr. Knowitall suggested or alluded to the fact that he has a better group of friends ( I think he might have gotten snooty injecting a preferred single malt scotch or some sh*te like that into the discussion) than mine and he may very well have. Something else about cleaning or re-educating my ears, hearing, something like that. I could have been offended but instead found him quite amusing. I'm laughing thinking about it as I write.

One that I heard was Junky But Loud (JBL). My JBL compression drivers have been performing admirably for years now, but I do recall when I first bought them they were plagued with metal shavings stuck in the gap, causing some bad response. I took them to an authorized service center who declared them to be functioning perfectly. I asked them how they determined that and they said by listening to them. I had already measured and knew the response was way out of spec. I guess for those who can't hear it or don't care they were just fine! 

acman3

3,675 posts

05-04-2022 at 10:02pm 

Dave, skimed back through and don’t see any racist comments. Just silly people having fun. Can you show me what you see? Maybe one of the deleted post.

Some people just live to be faux-enraged.

waytoomuchstuff OP

74 posts

05-04-2022 at 08:19am 

A little on subject/off subject remark:

When I was 17, I blew a woofer in my brother's Sansui speakers playing The Big Sound of the Drags LP.  I took them to the local audio saloon for repair and was told: "Sansui speakers aren'tt worth the postage to send them here from Japan!!"  That was my first experience with an audio specialty store

I have that record, complete with a bunch of autographs (Garlits, Eddie Hill etc.)!

I've been around a long time (67), and I haven't heard of most of these, but the one that isn't a joke, but nearly everyone pronounces incorrectly is Technics. They pronounce it Techniques. That is incorrect.

in the late 70’s, I owned a pair of Ball sack B-302 speakers.  Traded them in on some DQ-10’s. Anyone remember if there was a nickname for them. I can’t right now.

Dave, skimed back through and don’t see any racist comments. Just silly people having fun. Can you show me what you see? Maybe one of the deleted post.

So this is a racist, ignorant retrospective of audio brands?  Nice 👍 

Bozo. 

Sherwood-Sherwankwood

@waytoomuchstuff

And, who can forget?:

"No highs. No lows. It must be Bose."

Yes, and that simple formula continues to make millions for them.

We here might want realism in audio but obviously many, manyore than us don’t.

They seem to prefer a soft focus version of the real thing.

There’s a good flavour of the kind of mostly harmless nonsense Linn used to regularly churn out in the 70s and 80s here.

http://audiophilemusings.blogspot.com/p/linn-brochures.html?m=1

Actually, my Harmon Kardon stereo in my car sounds incredible.

These are great!!

Reminds me of a class reunion.  (Without the embarrassment)

And who could forget OINK-YO?

BLO-ZAK

GO-NAD