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What Gear Has Disappointed You?

While it's clearly not an absolute fact, we tend to have an expectation that a more expensive product should be better.  Within a given brand it really should be a fact, but because there's a wide range of factors in play when it comes to pricing it's not necessarily true when comparing different brands.  I think that it's fair to say that when we purchase a more expensive product we generally have an expectation that it'll perform better.  In the cases where our experience confirms this belief it can be the result of the product actually being better and/or some expectation bias. In a sense, it doesn't really matter which it is.

With this in mind, have you ever purchased a product expecting it to be superior only find that it was clearly inferior in your experience?

 

mceljo
jriggy's avatar
jriggy
565 posts
 

Back about 10 years ago I decided to get serious about power delivery and purchase a more expensive than had power conditioner.

I bought a Running Springs Audio Dmitri power conditioner (around 5k new)

I was shocked how closed-in and warm it made everything. Maybe I already had to much warmth at the time and it  just wasn’t a good fit. But I surely didn’t expect a power conditioner to impart such a seemingly strong sonic profile onto everything. Out it went after just a few days and I lost more reselling it than any other purchase before or since. 

audio-satisficer
30 posts
 

Schiit Freya +

Holo Spring 2 DAC

fbgbill's avatar
fbgbill
307 posts
 

For me it was the McIntosh MT2 turntable. I am pretty much a Mc guy and thought this would be a perfect intro back into vinyl. While it is well built by ClearAudio, mine would have varying speed issues and I replaced the belt once but finally sold it and moved on. I know have a VPI.

waytoomuchstuff's avatar
waytoomuchstuff
1,159 posts
 

First generation CD players.

arhgef
56 posts
 

Schiit Gungnir. Just did not have the sound quality for the price. In my comparisons, Chord Qutest and RME ADI2 both better, for different reasons.

Surprisingly, KEF LS50 Meta. Lots of hype,  but for classical music the timbres were just not reproduced well, especially highs. Fine for amplified music like rock and roll. 

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