Has anyone else auditioned something that really was terrible?

Though it's not an amplifier, I think the worst hifi product I ever heard was the Bertagni panel speaker back in the mid-1970s. I like Magnapans, Quads and most other panel speakers I’ve heard, but these failed horridly.

Am I just spoiled?

Hope not. You are probably just what you should be: discriminating. Audiophiles ought to have high standards. Not be running around buying one thing after another. Making fool statements and excuses like it might not work in every system. As if anything magically knows whether to sound good or not based on what else its connected to. Yet this is what passes for advice around here.

The vast, vast majority of stuff is crap. At every price level. Crap. Its just very, very hard to figure out what is good. A lot of which has to do with nonsense advice like it might not work in your system. So people buy crap that they can live with, but because its crap it has some glaring faults, which they then try and cover up with other stuff, because someone told them this is called system matching and something they are suppose to do. What utter nonsense.

What you are supposed to do is what you are doing. You read and research and winnow down to a few and then actually audition the few. Which inevitably you find are not what they were cracked up to be. Do this enough and you get so GD good at reading and analyzing that you almost never bring anything even remotely crappy home. But this takes a long time. Decades.

This is not called being spoiled. Far from it. This is called being competent, being a good listener, being selective. Its a virtue not a sin.
https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367

Thanks,  I feel much better.  I had shorted a preamp to the A/C outlet wiring trying to test a transformer, because the preamp was coming on slowly.  I sent 110 volts through the other preamp inputs, two amps, a CD player. I shulld have just left it on all the time.  I already had the little caps that triggered the input reed switches, but just had to try one more thing. Luckily, I found a good repairman and decided that my stuff was worth fixing.  I listened to Mac for the first time since seeing the Dead's Wall of Sound at Miami Jai Alai.  I paid about as much to fix my stuff than I had paid used, years ago, but I am happy again.  It was  lot less money than new Mac stuff, and I actually prefer my electronics for my speakers.

Jump on Bose asap?  I was given what is probably Bose best speakers. They are towers with powered subs and do spread out acoustic piano well.  In fact, they even spread out triangles, making them sound the size of a tuba.  Well, maybe not quite.  He wanted them out of his house, and had already donated his Bryston electronics to me because he now needs remote control from his wheelchair.  I had heard his system many times, graciously accepted the speakers, and took them home.  I never hooked them up, thank you!.  Wanna buy them?  I also have his Grace 707 and a nice Sony tuner I don't need.  Plus the aforementioned Marantz surround receiver...  and a crap load (5 pairs and three orphans) of B&W speakers,  and a  single, painted 1950's or 60's AR three way.  Holy crap: Goliath and Son of Goliath M&K subs.  OMG, so to speak,  I need to sell some crap.

I heard a Rogers Integrated with Magnapan 3.7i's. man did the music sound strained. Although the dealer commented on how good it sounded.

ozzy