Over the years I have been fortunate to work with dealers who not only had decent rooms to demo gear, but who let me take things home or delivered them so I could demo them in my listening room. So in my case here’s a list of gear that I auditioned extensively but declined to purchase.
B&W 801 and 802 D3 - At first they sounded good, very detailed with excellent reproduction of timbre of instruments. But after 30 minutes of listening to some of our favorite recordings we found the sound tiring and thought it shrill and grainy. The switch from Ayre Acoustics monoblocks to McIntosh solid state monoblocks did not improve things. Perhaps a warmer, high powered tube amp would have helped, but I was not interested in buying new amps too.
Luxman L-509X - Loved the sound at the dealer, but when I brought it home it clipped audibly in my large room at high volume on my relatively inefficient 4-ohm speakers, which drop to 2 ohms. Perhaps the impedance of the speakers, and the power requirements of my speakers and large room. (My amp is 250w at 8 and 500w at 4 ohms continuous, and good with 2 ohm loads, so twice the power of the Luxman integrated and never a hint of clipping.)
Wilson Sabrina - Really nice sound but not worth the money in my view and not audibly enough superior to my old Aerial Acoustics Model 8b’s.