While many are asking what are the best preamps, best amps, best this or best that, wouldn't it be nice for others to know our worst nightmares with certain products?
:-)
My top 3s are:
1) Kora Eclipse preamp From an Canadian member, the preamp arrived DOA. SInce it was shipped from Canada, return shipping cost and logistics are typically expensive and brutal. So the preamp was sent to a self-proclaimed Kora fan and expert in VA. Turned out, the repair cost was way more than I bargain for. The seller refused to fund it adequately. Ended up a super overpriced purchase with 2 months down time. Lesson learnt: Just return anything that is DOA even the seller talks sweet and offers to repair it to save you money.
2) Kora Galaxy Reference power amp From the same Canadian member, this unit arrived with all output tubes mixed up. The amps kept blowing fuses and overheat. Bias pots do not work. Again, I was too nice to have it 'repaired' at seller's expense. Not a single penny was collectible from this seller, however. The unit was sent to the same Kora 'guru' who wasted near a grand of my money to fix it - turned out nothing was fixed, the unit suffered additional shipping damages, and I was labelled as a tube idiot by this repairman who just conned me $1k. Out of total frustration, I hammered the amp into pieces and sold it as scrap for $4 in Audiogon. That's a near $3k loss! Lesson learnt: Take anger management class.
3) Krell PAM-3 dual-mono preamp Arrived working for first few days with noisy volume pot, then the unit caught on fire - the caps melted with lots of tar inside. Seller refused to take it back obviously since it was not DOA. Sent to Krell for repair, only to be told the repair estimate was near $3k (including $350 return shipping cost from Connecticut to New Jersey - $250 of which is for a Krell shipping box). Made perfect sense to me when I had purchased it for $550.
Wc65mustang, Apparently the "d" key did not connect. Also apparently you are very hyper critical. You had PM'd me not long ago. The full body of your message was "move on" I had no idea what your problem was with me as gave no indication. Positives always out-weigh negatives.
"10-17-13: Isochronism Zd542, I had researched each component in my system at great length before purchase. I am happy with my culmination."
What kind of research did you do? Please share it with us. As far as I can remember, I think you are the first person that I've come across that hasnÂ’t made any mistakes when buying audio equipment. We all make mistakes with our systems. For the most part, that's our research. I know I joke around a lot, but please don't take offence. I really am curious as to how you do it.
Where I go wrong, and probably many others, is how to bridge the gap between all the research you do leading up to the purchase, and then face the reality of how the component performs over time. There are always qualities that don't reveal themselves until after you live with the piece for a while.
Zd542, I spent a few years of many nights reading of others more vast experiences on the internet and then researching many components. No auditioning of anything. I bought %95 of my system here in six months checking the ads everyday. Never sold or traded anything, what I bought I have and use. Maybe I was just plain lucky or perhaps delushioned into thinking that it actually does sound good :)
"Maybe I was just plain lucky or perhaps delushioned into thinking that it actually does sound good :)"
I was going to say that if it sounds good then it is good. It really can't be an illusion. But now I find that delushioned isn't a word. I'm pretty sure I understand what was meant by it, but it leaves me in a bad spot. By me using the word illusion in reference to the word delushioned, I can't help but think now I'm at fault. And I can tell you from experience, when something is at fault, its usually my fault.
While I'm trying to figure how to get myself out of the above mess, I have a question about how you put your system together. Maybe you are lucky, but the results are what matters. You have a system that you are happy with. What I want to know is, that if you didn't demo anything, and went just by reviews and opinions, how did you get around matters of personal taste? For example, I'm very sensitive to high frequencies. If a system doesn't get the HF's right, I can't listen to it. The point I'm trying to make is that without actual listening experience, I would have never known that. And that's just one example out of many different types of personal choices you need to make when building a system. Without any type of reference, how do you make those kind of decisions?
Iso 10-21-13: Isochronism Sentence example: You are delushioned with feelings of self grandeur. Think outside the padded cell :) 'Actually' very funny.
As Winston Churchill said, "My tastes are simple: I'm easily satisfied with the best" But really, I had decided on a SET based system, without hearing one prior. I finally decided upon a particular maker. My Preamp choice was complimentary by "specs". To be honest, most of my cables were somewhat quickly purchased here by choosing popular brands and models that would be easily resold when that part of the chain is ready to be more "refined" by listening, and given the fact that I am in a temporary small apartment, that will have to wait until I move. You can read the thread titled "calling all horn lovers" where I describe a pair of speakers that I have which are waiting in the wings to be for a larger location. A very well respected manufacturer, (and certainly by me) who shall remain nameless for now, said "You'll have about 100 percent chance chance of getting them wrong" That will be more challenging. We'll see in due time :)
To sum up... Is my system perfect? No. Do my speakers go very low and very high? No. Do they have full coherence through their frequency range? Yes!! Am I satisfied with it? Fully %100! (Until I move) Am I an Audiophile? Apparently not. Am I a Music lover? Yes, %100
For me, all 3 came to Audio Research VT100! I got all 3 versions and they all needed repairs after repairs!! Very good sounding amp but just poorly designed. Blowing boards all the time until it was too hard to repair! I wonder if I am the only unlucky one?
"Blowing boards all the time until it was too hard to repair! I wonder if I am the only unlucky one?"
Mine blew up and pieces flew out the top and hit me in the face while I was sitting in my listening chair. It was kind of funny. And a good excuse to upgrade.
Other than my mid fi HT gear, which i Iiked but always has horrible resale due to format and connectivity obsolescence, the following are my worst purchases:
Cheap BDplayers- my 1st Blueray player, Samsung , sounds horrible on music and is worth nothing on resale market.
Tom Evans Groove - lived with it for about 7 yrs, never happy with the sound and could never get rid of the hum picked up from my pre amps transformer.
2yrs after buying it used, one channel went out and the really wierd US distributor charged me $900 to have Tom fix it, plus i had to send it back to England myself. Finally bit the bullet and bought a Zesto which fixed the hum and was significantly better sounding. Even tho I bought groove at 50% off $4000 retail, I still took a 35% loss to sell it not including the $900 repair.
Tom generally has a very good rep, so don't want to bash his company, but the Groove was not a good fit in my system.
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.
