What Gear Has Disappointed You?

ARC Ref 80S amp.

Sold to me as being “a match made in heaven” for my Quad 57s.

Not

No question that it is an excellent amp, but heavy handed with the Quads.

And I never felt any time a suspension of disbelief.

Just fatiguing on highs and high volume.

Yes: I went on a vintage binge, excited about the cool aesthetics and supposedly superior construction.  All of the following were inferior in all respects (other than the LOOK of the units... I mean, come on: those old Marantz receivers are true eye candy... and the HK and Pioneers are lookers, too, and nice to handle as well) sonically and functionally to the simple, inexpensive Marantz nr1200 receiver... all the vintage were sold off at no loss, following the revelation: 

Marantz 2238 receiver

Pioneer sx450 receiver

Harman Kardon HK430 receiver

all beautiful to look at, but the new nr1200 beat them all handily.  I was rather surprised, but when I was honest with myself I had to admit it... 

KEF LS-50s - just all wrong in my room. They are a near field monitor for small rooms. In my living room, they just sounded tiny and lost, even with a sub. Replaced them with Monitor Audio Silver 300 7G, and am very happy. The LS-50s will go into a second system in a smaller room.

My VPI Scout was originally ordered with a Grado Sonata 3 from Music Direct. Supposedly preinstalled, aligned, and tested. Not only was the installation alignment visibly horribly wrong, the tracking force clearly had not been set, and to top it all off, the Grado hummed as badly as any badly grounded device ever. Music Direct's response was great, swapped the Grado for a Hana SH, which I installed and aligned myself. As for the VPI, other than an initially sticky cuing  damper, it has been flawless. Horror stories about unipivot arm setup are mostly urban myth and the low tracking error of the 10.5" 3D printed arm suits the Shibata stylus well. Very happy now.

No particular order:

Crown Amps--shrill and broke quickly

Quad speakers--definition of "listening fatigue"

Mark Levinson anything (1970's)--really bad sound from awesome components

McIntosh anything--well, their scope thing is pretty cool to look at

Bose speakres--joke of the audio world with "direct reflecting."  Still laughing.

Stax headphones--1970's--SHRILL!

Dynaco 70--really noisy through headphones

Most box speakers

Trascriptor TT--BEAUTIFUL, but does not actually work

Lots more, but enough for now.

Cheers!

if you really love the 70's gear curtdr , you should try some truly fully refurbished pieces...for most a huge difference, though a very vocal few prefer them original...