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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
ericsch
751 posts
 

Parasound JC3+, noisy in my system and no gain adjustment. Replaced it with a Pass XP-15 and later with a Modwright PH 9.0X, both dead quiet.

 

edcyn
1,876 posts
 

I still bear a grudge against Mytek (both the maker and the internet site I bought it from) for not giving me even a trace of accommodation when my Brooklyn Streamer/DAC/Phono Amp died pretty much the day it went out of warranty.  And, damn, the thing sounded good! On the other side of the ledger, my Electrocompaniet preamp/phono stage did indeed last a very decent amount of time past its warranty coverage. So I can't really complain. For a while I replaced it with the preamp portion of my NAD integrated amp. In any event, I'm now leery of all Class A transistor gear. By contrast, when a tube goes dead you can easily mail order another one. And when I lived in L.A. there were several places around town that kept a variety of tubes in stock. They were fun places to visit, too.

mglik
888 posts
 

ARC Ref 80S amp.

Sold to me as being “a match made in heaven” for my Quad 57s.

Not

No question that it is an excellent amp, but heavy handed with the Quads.

And I never felt any time a suspension of disbelief.

Just fatiguing on highs and high volume.

curtdr
348 posts
 

Yes: I went on a vintage binge, excited about the cool aesthetics and supposedly superior construction.  All of the following were inferior in all respects (other than the LOOK of the units... I mean, come on: those old Marantz receivers are true eye candy... and the HK and Pioneers are lookers, too, and nice to handle as well) sonically and functionally to the simple, inexpensive Marantz nr1200 receiver... all the vintage were sold off at no loss, following the revelation: 

Marantz 2238 receiver

Pioneer sx450 receiver

Harman Kardon HK430 receiver

all beautiful to look at, but the new nr1200 beat them all handily.  I was rather surprised, but when I was honest with myself I had to admit it... 

panzrwagn's avatar
panzrwagn
448 posts
 

KEF LS-50s - just all wrong in my room. They are a near field monitor for small rooms. In my living room, they just sounded tiny and lost, even with a sub. Replaced them with Monitor Audio Silver 300 7G, and am very happy. The LS-50s will go into a second system in a smaller room.

My VPI Scout was originally ordered with a Grado Sonata 3 from Music Direct. Supposedly preinstalled, aligned, and tested. Not only was the installation alignment visibly horribly wrong, the tracking force clearly had not been set, and to top it all off, the Grado hummed as badly as any badly grounded device ever. Music Direct's response was great, swapped the Grado for a Hana SH, which I installed and aligned myself. As for the VPI, other than an initially sticky cuing  damper, it has been flawless. Horror stories about unipivot arm setup are mostly urban myth and the low tracking error of the 10.5" 3D printed arm suits the Shibata stylus well. Very happy now.

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