1. All "high-performance" cables (with few exceptions for speakers that have demanding impedence curves in the upper frequencies where the cable's "low impedence" will be of use).
2. Most all pure vacuum tube circuits (some hybrids are ok and tubes can do well in an fm tuner)
3. All Class A/B amplifiers (the designer should have just stuck with class B if s/he couldn't afford the heatsinking for class A).
5. D'appolito and line array designs (only the latter one's incorporating electrodynamic transducers)-both have too many interference problems that there is no way around.
6. Ridiculously overpriced gear given the cost of its parts (design time does not makeup for it): 47labs sakura systems gets top place-$600 for a piece of stupid 28g wire and that dumb gaincard amp, Genesis follows a close second with thier crap-$12 tweeters and sub-$200 ribbons in a $90,000 system?)
7. All vibration control devices-microphony in most gear is inaudible. Turntables exempt, its important here.
8. Many more not caught in any category who missed the boat because of bad engineering choices.
9. Burn-in CD's, wonder contact cleaners, etc., etc., etc.
2. Most all pure vacuum tube circuits (some hybrids are ok and tubes can do well in an fm tuner)
3. All Class A/B amplifiers (the designer should have just stuck with class B if s/he couldn't afford the heatsinking for class A).
5. D'appolito and line array designs (only the latter one's incorporating electrodynamic transducers)-both have too many interference problems that there is no way around.
6. Ridiculously overpriced gear given the cost of its parts (design time does not makeup for it): 47labs sakura systems gets top place-$600 for a piece of stupid 28g wire and that dumb gaincard amp, Genesis follows a close second with thier crap-$12 tweeters and sub-$200 ribbons in a $90,000 system?)
7. All vibration control devices-microphony in most gear is inaudible. Turntables exempt, its important here.
8. Many more not caught in any category who missed the boat because of bad engineering choices.
9. Burn-in CD's, wonder contact cleaners, etc., etc., etc.