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
My worst purchase back in 1997 was a Sonographe SA250 amplifier that was suppose to mimic to sound of tubes. I gave it a couple of weeks to run in but sent it back in a hurry for a Classe CA100 and matched it with a PV12 Pre.

Also tried the AR equipment with horrible results as well...
Very well stated Joe (Trelja), I agree with you 100%. I couldn't have summed it up better myself.

Cheers,
John
As the original poster to this thread I'm astonished at it's legs. I understand threads go off in tangents but this one's a Deusy
Well, to go off on yet another tangent, that would be "Duesy," as in "Duesenberg."

:-)

Best regards,
-- Al
Per Atmasphere components. Posting in a public forum personal correspondence demonstrates Ralph's lack of integrity. Regardless, the time to be proactive was when I owned the gear, not now after the fact. I've previously addressed satisfactorily things Ralph presents in his 9/4 post and that his followers posted on 9/5 including what happened during the warranty period and why talking to him after the fact would not happen, though funny how things disappear.

Products as poorly made and as problematic as the Atmasphere amps and preamp I owned are solid reasons to mention them in a thread about “your most disappointing purchase.” Ralph insists I'm lying and have ulterior motives. I've endeavored but failed to understand what ulterior motives I might have, see my previous post, with the most logical being I was a sleeper agent for another company. I challenge someone to come up with ulterior motives that make more sense than the facts I’ve described. On the other hand, Ralph has motive to sweep my experiences under the table.

Per the reversed diodes in the preamp. It is possible that was not the reason the 2 Caddock resistors severely overheated and their resultant color change. The reversed diode fault was what Ralph mentioned when the overheating resistors issue was in for repair at Atmasphere. As an aside making a global statement that no product can work if it has a diode reversed is an unusual theory.