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Is there any bad sounding high-end gear--?

I was reading the thread here today about biased reviewers-
it got me thinking, out of the stuff which is reviewed in the publications which serve the high-end arena, is there really any bad sounding gear?----I am talking about from what I call the golden era of High-end, 1990---2000, stuff from the major players like ARC, CJ, Krell, MLevinson, Jadis---etc-----I use this time frame as this was the pre-Chinese era when most gear was from the US, we also saw stuff from Italy, France and Swiss made stuff.

When I have purchased something and not liked it, I always struck it up to a system mismatch----

If anyone can provide what they bought and really thought it was terrible, I'd be interested to know what it was.
128x128justlisten
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
To me most of Joseph, Revel and B&W speakers sounds horrible. To the same degree I'd count Merilyn VSM.
The most Unique speakers in that case are Martin Logans. They sound horrible in any set up and any room.
In amplification I'd count in this category Cary amps, preamps and digital players. Heard them many times not even once liked any.
Although, there are lots of fans for the equipment listed in my bad sounding list. Someone might hate for instance Aerial or Totem speakers that I have and belove set up with Sunfire/Classe gear and it's all normal. We're free to express our personal preferences.
tzh21y
1,654 posts
 
Those are some interesting comments, especially about the VSM. I mostly hear nothing but praise for that speaker. Each to his own I guess
chadnliz
3,736 posts
 
This is all pure opinion and while interesting its useless, its not really hard to make something sound "good" and we should expect all to sound at least reasonably good especially if thats the focus instead of mass consumer gear thats price is first concern.
As mentioned value is the real question, how well does it perform for what cost it demands and just what can be justified as its MSRP. Thats where countless gear IMO opinion doesnt live up to hype, cost or claimed expense to create and build.
danielk141
489 posts
 
I've only heard one piece that sounded really bad, to me.
OCOS speaker cable!
Worse than any other cable, ever.
6550c
393 posts
 
imo, most "high end" speakers arn't really all that great and some are bad.
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