That would have to be the Krell KAV-300i. Was a long-time Stereophile subscriber and read a "Firmly Recommended" review in Stereophile in 1996. Going from all the rave reviews that Stereophile gave to Krell products, I decided to go out and buy one to see what the hype was all about.
Auditioned it in the store and found it to be cold, sterile and completely lacking any musical qualities but it did have the famous Krell "bass slam" and I was assured that given a good break-in that the cold, sterile attributes would vanish.
Couldn't make it past a week! Was then using an AMC 3030i 30WPC integrated tube amp and it smoked it hands down in every musical attribute except for the bass slam but who needs that when the 1st watt and all that come after it are cold, sterile garbage??
The second biggest disappointment was the original Martin-Logan Aries speakers. Again read a rave review in Stereophile and went out and the initial audition was pretty good, much better than my Fried Beta's/The Fried subwoofer combo at the time. Got 'em home and the soundstage was unlike anything I had heard up to that point but it slowly was revealed that the speakers had no top end to speak of! The Fried Beta's with their cone tweeter had more top end and that was considered on the dull/soft side at the time. There was also the panel/woofer discontinuity
blending as well that became more and more apparent on further listening. Took them back and auditioned a pair of the then new Alon 1's and have been an Alon/Nola fan ever since.
The third one was a pair of Q-audio interconnects. Was using the first series of AQ DBS interconnects at the time which was the Jaguar, Panther and Cheetah and was informed by the designer of the Q-audio IC's that DBS was nothing more than a gimmick and snake oil. Ordered a pair of the Q IC's for a direct comparison to the AQ IC's with the designers knowledge and with it came the stipulation that they could not be returned for any reason what so ever!
I bought them anyway and put them in the system against the low rung Jaguar and they lasted about an hour. I even disconnected the DBS on the Jaguar IC's and still the Q-audio IC's were bland and rolled off at the frequency extremes especially in the bass. Didn't even bother with comparing them to the Panther and Cheetah. Could have been a system impedance mismatch causing the Q-audio IC attributes but the AQ IC's sounded full range and musical and once DBS was restored on the Jaguars, the game was over.
DBS is snake oil?? Better not say that in front of Richard Vandersteen...
