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Stuff You Tried To Love

I know we talk a lot about confirmation bias- we buy something and then convince ourselves we like it. Or something like that. But did you ever buy something you wanted to love and just couldn’t make it work? For me, Esoteric X-05 SACD/CD player. Bought from a local who was upgrading to the X-03. Big, beautiful piece of gear, but I couldn’t get used to the sound after 6 months of trying. Sold it to another local- I insisted he listen before he bought and I believe he sold it soon after as well. Totem Forest and Hawk. I loved the whole concept. Slim, easy to live with. Couldn’t get them to work in my room. The Model Ones were much better. I had a couple of other pieces, but this is long enough. BTW, these were bought used without audition.

chayro
zarf
34 posts
 

I've tried a number of things that have been well reviewed, or seemed to have found favor among different forum residents, across several forums. They've all had strengths and weaknesses.

Superphon Revelation II pre

McCormack DNA 0.5 Deluxe amp

Forte Model 3 amp, restored

Adcom 5400 amp, restored

Acurus L10 pre

These were all okay, but lacked any exceptional greatness or synergy with anything else I had on hand at the time. On the other hand, a Nak CA5, or a B&K Pro-10 MC, both of those were really pretty good SS preamps, and matched well with many other pieces.

Schitt equipment was mostly unlucky for me, although I did like the Asgard 2 for a good while.

mdalton's avatar
mdalton
491 posts
 

@signaforce 

Nope, not when you put Krall in same sentence as Bach and Miles, lol!

stuartk
3,004 posts
 

@sokogear

I don't know what Progressive Jazz is. My favorite sub-genre is, without question, Post-Bop: 

A genre of small-combo jazz that assimilates hard bop, modal jazz, avant-garde and free jazz without necessarily being immediately identifiable as any of those form.

 

bjesien
1,337 posts
 

Wanted to love the Devore O/93 but they made my ears ring. Love all other Devore speakers and tried several amps and even put them in another room for a while.

Lygndorf was bad to me. So much hype way back in the day but I just couldn't handle the sound.

sokogear
1,100 posts
 

Me too @stuartk (as far as my jazz preferences-tilted toward blues). I guess I was thinking progressive as jazz fusion or jazz funk, really 70's-80's stuff. @knock1  - I'm not talking about audiophile labeling at all. Not sure why you mentioned me about punching someone's audiophile card.

Music preferences do not define audiophiles. And audiophile doesn't compose any specific music preferences. Any type of music along with an audiophile designation represent 2 overlapping circles in a Venn diagram. Or "audiophile" can be a large circle in the middle with each type of music having a circle overlapping it to some degree in the diagram. Some overlap more than others....

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