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What Gear Has Disappointed You?

While it's clearly not an absolute fact, we tend to have an expectation that a more expensive product should be better.  Within a given brand it really should be a fact, but because there's a wide range of factors in play when it comes to pricing it's not necessarily true when comparing different brands.  I think that it's fair to say that when we purchase a more expensive product we generally have an expectation that it'll perform better.  In the cases where our experience confirms this belief it can be the result of the product actually being better and/or some expectation bias. In a sense, it doesn't really matter which it is.

With this in mind, have you ever purchased a product expecting it to be superior only find that it was clearly inferior in your experience?

 

mceljo
ozzy62's avatar
ozzy62
2,844 posts
 

Sonic Frontiers Power 2

Meadowlark Audio Shearwater HR

VAC PA 100/100

Aerial Acoustics 7T

Roman Audio Centurion

McCormack DNA-2

Cary Audio SLI-80

 

Those are some that come to mind right away.

 

 

 

fuzztone's avatar
fuzztone
5,502 posts
 

Schiit DAC lasting < 3 years. They showed no interest in repairing it.

Chinese balanced with a display and remote same price. Check back in 3:years.

pmm
218 posts
 

Bought a new Rotel 975 cdp for $550, back in 1996, not cheap. 7 years later, the drawer went bad, controls unresponsive. This happened twice, in a three year time period, and had it repaired by two different techs. Well, as the saying goes- "the third time is a charm",  so I trashed it. I miss that player, it was pretty good sounding.

Bought, a used Rega Apollo, which lasted 2 years, until the ribbon cabble went bad. I then, bought a used Rega Saturn, which lasted a year, before its` ribbon cabble and lazer assy went bad. I had the Saturn repaired by a reputable tech, but eventually, has issues. Still have a cheap ol’ NAD 515, bought in 1995, still going strong.

jerryg123's avatar
jerryg123
3,429 posts
 

NAD M10. 

I was a bit shocked as I have had good luck with the brand in the past. 

akg_ca's avatar
akg_ca
2,163 posts
 

CAMBRIDGE AV equipment

- (1);the very top model CAMBRIDGE AVR (model number escapes me for the moment ….)

It suddenly and catastrophically failed twice in the reported faulty P,O.S HDMI board ,..,it suddenly crapped out TOTALLY TWICE during its three-year warranty period. The entire HDMI motherboard was replaced each time.

The first FUHBAR was a failed HDMI Motherboard case that was only 13 months out from new; and it was thankfully covered by warranty,

The second catastrophic HDMI board FUHBAR was only 27 months out from new after very light use,…and the distributor now fought me and refused to honour the warranty. It was their BS argument that it was somehow now my fault that created fatal damage to the hdmi connectors from my alleged repeated swap-in and swap-out of HDMI cable connectors . (Hint: there were repeated no swap-ins or swap-outs ,,,,once only to set it up …)

(2) The stablemate top model CAMBRIDGE Blu-Ray player.

It suddenly and catastrophically ALSO failed totally some 28 months out from new. Because it had only a two year warranty, I was SOL. The cost to repair exceeded its FMV, so I passed on it. .

 

MY TAKEAWAY

I immediately sold the AVR and grudgingly rendered the stablemate Blu-ray player to a boat anchor status.
I replaced the AVR with three discrete high-end YBA power amps and a standalone 7.1AV preamp/ AV processor.
The BluRay player was Aldine upgraded to an ARCAM that has been flawless.

 

MY TAKEAWAY

CAMBRIDGE AV equipment is very good WHEN IT WORKS ….but otherwise is a must-to-avoid IMO.

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