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

if you really love the 70's gear curtdr , you should try some truly fully refurbished pieces...for most a huge difference, though a very vocal few prefer them original...

Klipsch LaScala

Just criminal the complete absence of sub-bass. I was persuaded back to a dealer's home after he promised me epic bass. Put on my first record, some drum and bass, and the point where the bass slam usually descended into the mind boggling nether regions there was just a dry clap with no substance.

Pathetic

@aolmrd1241 I'm not saying the Crescendo isn't a great speaker, if fact I loved it.  And the cabinet work (mine were burled walnut) is some of the best in the world.  My point was that moving from the Triton Reference to a speaker that was more than twice the price, was not justified by the improvment in sound quality.  Were they better?  Yes, not by that much.  But maybe they are the perfect speaker for your ears, in your listening space.  That's waht makes this an interesting pursuit. Cheers.

@gavman - from what I've heard about big Klipsch speakers in reviews and such, their defining trait is most definitely NOT 'epic bass'. Tight bass, sure, but not wall-shaking. I think it was 'criminal' of the dealer to misrepresent the speaker if that is the case. Sounds like whatever you end up getting, you might get a lot out of adding a good subwoofer or two. 

@jl35 each piece I had was professionally and meticulously refurbed, with supposedly all the best caps etc.  Still not up to even the modest nr1200, on sound quality even (clarity, separation, imaging, bass articulation,... the whole of it) let alone the features.

I'm sticking w recent gear from now on.  I want coax, optical, hdmi, ... etc.  Also, remote controls are always nice, lol.