Which speakers did you find bright, fatiguing or just disappointing in some way?


OK, controversial subject but it needs asked. I'm curious for your experiences, mainly in your home, not a dealer and esp. not a show demo
greg7
I think most of the Focals could easily end up high in this ranking. I used to have the Mezzo Utopia and although paired with Naim it was quite fatiguing.
Meanwhile, back at the topic. .   

In my home, Vandersteen 1Cs, even though I tried many upstream upgrades.

Elsewhere, anything from KEF, most of the Paradigms I have heard, and all the PSB models I gave heard.
@whipsaw - I bought the Europe’s after reading all of the rave reviews. All I can say is every other speaker I placed in that room didn’t sound harsh and fatiguing as the Europe’s did. I guess I needed to power them with a Rowland amp, not Conrad-Johnson. I heard what I heard, and have no reason to make it up. Not sure why you think my claim dubious.
@uncledemp It is human nature, alas.

"And yet if every desire were satisfied as soon as it arose how would men occupy their lives, how would they pass the time? Imagine this race transported to a Utopia where everything grows of its own accord and turkeys fly around ready-roasted, where lovers find one another without any delay and keep one another without any difficulty: in such a place some men would die of boredom or hang themselves, some would fight and kill one another, and thus they would create for themselves more suffering than nature inflicts on them as it is." 

https://eafz.blogspot.com/2011/10/schopenhauer-essay-on-suffering-of.html

There are no absolutes. Everything posted so far is purely anecdotal.

I just recently listened to a speaker that sounded harsh and fatiguing on one particular amp and then simply glorious and unparalleled on another amp. Not to even mention the myriad of other components that play a role. 
It is not necessarily the speaker, it is rather how they matched up with certain components.