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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
rbyington711's avatar
rbyington711
66 posts
 

Mine was the Top of the Line Marantz AV unit a few years back one side stopped working I called the 800 number had it less than a year never received a callback.

A year later I gave a one-star review on Amazon and got a call from a Marantz VP could he help me I said no returned it to the store and purchased an Arcam

 

Regarding the guy who had the issue with PS Audio, I had heard about the issue with that CD Drive. I personally own a power plant 20 a BHK 250 amp a BHK preamp and DAC Additionally I own two Pass lab amps and have always every time had nothing but  OUTSTANDING Service from PS Audio. I love purchasing great equipment from a company that you can still communicate with the founder.

A friend of mind was calling Pass Labs and forgot about the time difference so it was very early in the morning in CA and Nelson answered the phone when he called. Compare this to my experience, with Marantz

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curiousjim's avatar
curiousjim
4,810 posts
 

I can’t really say any of the equipment I’ve bought has disappointed me, but I am disappointed with how every engineer mixes tunes differently so sometimes my subwoofer sounds perfect and sometimes I have to shut it off or at least turn it down! But I guess that should be another thread.

mg16's avatar
mg16
118 posts
 

Audiomat phono stage

Lehman Black Cube phono stage

Mesa Baron tube amp

Threshold S/300 power amp

Pass Aleph 3

Too many others to mention.

mg16

russcoughenour
14 posts
 

Number 1 without a doubt were Theil 3.5's.  Way bright and they were being used with a Threshold Stasis amplifier.  I only kept them for a weekend.    

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