What's the most overrated or overpriced piece of equipment you own, have owned or come by?

I’ve had a couple of pieces by Schiit over the last couple of years: Thin, dry, clunky and sound cheap. Not super expensive, but more expensive that they’re worth. Fortunately, they were easy to sell.

Magnepan: Inefficient, sorely lacking in the low-end, require huge power, excel at simple, acoustic type music, and that’s pretty much it. Relatively expensive and one-dimensional. Disappointing.

Cambridge Audio: This brand reminds me of late 1980’s Jaguar cars. Pretty on the outside with all the real-world reliability of a junkie. Love me some Jaguars, not so much Cambridge Audio.

What I’ve learned:

What’s right for somebody else, isn’t necessarily right for me.

Reviews are, at the very least......let’s just say......"slanted". Trust your ears. The rest is irrelevant.

There’s no such thing as a "giant killer".

There’s no replacement for displacement.

I should add that I’m not trying to bash on any company, or get even, or anything like that. JM2CW.

NONE DUDE!!!!

I went against my instincts once and bought "audiophile" speaker cables. Complete waste of money. I preach that any chance I get.

Ooops...I forgot about this. When I was very young (and poor and not very smart) I bought my first "good" turntable. A Garrard Zero 100. I think I was trying to be different from my friends who had Dual 1229s. What a total piece of trash. The motor (I assume) went bad almost immediately. Not to mention the arm (a nice idea, poorly executed).

Oddly enough, I have, in a bedroom system, it's distant cousin. A GT55, with a much refined arm. It runs fine (I had it cleaned and lubed) and actually sounds quite good, at least in that system.

I once owned an Esoteric X-05 and couldn't wait to get rid of it.  A beautiful machine and I wanted to love it, but after 6 months it still sounded dry and harmonically incomplete.  I sold it locally and I insisted the buyer listen before buying, but he bought it anyway and sold it shortly after.