Your most disappointing purchase or audition?


I've had a few.

bought a Naim Nait 3. Loved it in the store. Returned it within a week- way forward at home

Brought home some CJ preamp to audition perhaps 22 years ago. Noisy as anything and a turn off transient destroyed a tweeter (though years later i bought a CJ 17LS2 which I thought was the finest preamp I ever heard in my home)

Auditioned a VPI table (HW19) in a store- the store just could not get the belt to stay on. Bought a Rega instead. This was in perhaps 1990.

Fortunately, I never really experienced buyers remorse say 6 months or more after settling on a piece of gear.

Finally, there have been too many speakers that got stellar write ups which I just didn't care for.
128x128zavato
@ charles Yes sorry I meant to say *initially* he wasn't getting a fair shake. dashed off that last sentence too quickly!
Tannoy DC8T, Usher Dancer II, Magico M5, any Kharma speakers, any LUA amps, Avantgarde speakers go TOOOOOOOOT
Magico Q5 (dead, lifeless, thin, analytic and far away from a reproduction of a real sounding tone)
I bought a pair of used ohm F's that sounded ok until you started to apply more power then the cone seemed to break into oscillation and really distort; this was when I first entered into audio in 1984ish and did not know this speaker was a rough load to handle and these problems seemed to be normal indication that a rebuild was in order. I wished I had knew more back then and had them rebuilt as I traded them in at Audio King.