Lemons are an actual thing in high-end audio


The last couple of years I have been on a quest to get my system to the point where I am satisfied that it is as good as I could get it within reasonable budgetary limits, which for me was about $20K.

Along the way, I sampled quite a bit of gear in my home for extended periods. In particular, I went through a surprising number of amplifiers before I arrived at my preferred piece of equipment.What I discovered during this process is that lemons can and sometimes get released by high-end audio manufacturers. I am not going to name the manufacturers in question because I honestly believe that my experience was the result of purely random factors and could occur with ANY manufacturer.

One of the lemons I got was a high-power solid state amplifier, very well reviewed, from a highly regarded major manufacturer. I kept hoping that the fabled "burn-in" would fix what I heard. It did not. After about 200 hours I gave up.The sound, though powerful, was harsh and unmusical. In this case, I suppose that I only had myself to blame because although I bought it brand new, I had found it on the gray market. I just couldn't resist the substantially discounted price. Lesson learned. Interestingly, the amplifier I eventually settled on was a different model but from the same manufacturer. I bought it used, but it was from a reliable and known source. I couldn't be happier with the result.

The second lemon I got was altogether different. I bought a high-end DAC directly from the manufacturer, and in this case I was quite lucky. The shipper had made a mistake and sent me two separate units. The first one I got was a upgraded version of the same model that I bought that was intended for another customer. Until the manufacturer reached out to me I didn't know this, and I was terribly disappointed by what I heard. Not only was it not an improvement over my existing DAC. It actually sounded worse. When the manufacturer told me that my unit would arrive in a day or two and would I please ship the one I had been sent by mistake to the intended customer, I was elated. The unit originally intended for me arrived the same day I shipped the wayward unit to its rightful owner. As I had hoped, this less expensive version of the same DAC sounded MUCH better than the one I had been listening to. In fact, it sounded better than any DAC I have ever heard. So, now I am happy. The DAC was the last link in the chain of my dream system.

Much has been written by those in this hobby about snake oil and how manufacturers of high-end audio can take advantage of audiophiles by producing sub-standard gear at exorbitant prices just as a cynical way to turn a buck. For the most part, this has not been my experience. I have run across gear whose sound was obviously refined and well-executed, but just not to my taste. That didn't surprise me. But what did surprise me was the sub-standard gear I encountered from manufacturers acting in good faith who, for whatever reason, just got it wrong and let second-rate gear slip through their quality control efforts.

Buyer beware.
tomlhuffman
I just came off of a very very bitter experience with a lemon(used.) Not only did I spend a lot of money getting it repaired a few times but the biggest problem was the sound it made was so magical and compelling I couldn’t believe these sounds were coming from my system. The shimmer and impact of the personality of each instrument(I’m not talking about the general sound of an oboe let’s say but THAT oboe) and the layers of sound reaching out to me from a blackness that I don’t know where it exists in my small apartment continually astonished me. I wanted to listen to my entire library again with an unknown excitement and it was a struggle to live a life outside of listening to music. And no wine or vodka needed!
Alas I had to give it up due to inevitable continuing expensive problems.

Here’s the kicker. the company is very very famous and popular and known for making unreliable products which I did not know until I purchased it. I tried doing my research before but after the purchase I saw for some reason all the complaints on this site.

I was warned by two audiophiles never under any circumstances to buy their products again. Wait currently for repairs is now 3 months after they receive your unit.
It boggles the mind a company can be so sloppy in its reliability yet produce such a beautiful product, no I'll use the words beautiful instrument.

And it’s enormously sad as well. I never expect to hear those sounds coming from my system again.



I've run into the exact same thing with components that reviewed very well.  In fact, one component was very well designed and its components were beautiful, perfectly isolated stages, top grade semis.  I'm a manufacturing engineer and used to work in the electronics industry so I know how stuff is made.  I could not, for the life of me, get this thing to operate properly, even after cycling it back to the manufacturer for repair/testing or trying to isolate it on its own circuit.

It had zero issues after swapping for a brand new unit.  My only explanation?  We used to x-ray PCBs.  My guess is some of the components were either bad or were simply one of the 5-sigma or 6-sigma fallouts...
roxy1927,
And why wouldn't you want to name the brand and save others from the same problem?