Recent equipment you hated, thought overpriced

Its a fact that tweaks may work sometimes but are almost always cash cows with high markup fueled by hype used to help make this ridiculous industry profitable for some companies.

I avoid expensive tweaks like the plague. Similar or better results can usually be achieved for less.

I have not had any recent equipment that I hated. I probably paid too much ($200) for my .5m Harmonic Technology ICs, but these do make nice but expensive amp/pre jumpers on my old NAD receiver when needed.

"Quantum can be such an ugly word and makes a lot of people rather nervous. I move we just use the term, advanced physics. That way, everyone will be happy."

If the physics to play it back need be so far advanced beyond that required to create it in the first place to get it "right", I will still probably not be happy. But that's just me....

At least one might sniff out the snake oil easier when the term "quantum", is used in marketing materials to explain why something is so great when the advertiser knows perfectly well few if any will understand.

Now that's effective communication that you can trust!

Plus I am likely to not open my wallet as far for merely "advanced physics". How passe! Quantum is a lot more impressive!

No my observation has been that the term quantum is often used as a marketing ploy to make something appear more sophisticated and valuable then it would be otherwise.

I am a fan of keeping communications as simple and accurate as possible, not muddying the waters or obfuscating. So your impression is incorrect Geofkait.

"But no one has ever used the word quantum as a marketing ploy, at least not for audio devices, not in fifteen years. I suggest you might be a wee bit overly suspicious."

Well, anyone can do a Google search on "Quantum Audio Tweak" and decide for themselves about that.

Oy vey!

GEof, from the forums, at least we both seem to like a lot of the same music.

I'll leave it on that positive note.

FWIW, I sell nothing and have no vested interests in this discussion.

IF there is a rich and dumb audiophile market out there, I suppose someone will serve it.

Rich and smart do not always go hand in hand so I suspect there is such a market out there to target and scoring in that market is probably not all that hard in that the people would by definition be dumb (and rich). Actually probably pretty smart from a $$$s perspective to target that market. Smart people can be a pain in the arse and poor people probably have other priorities.

Would not be for me though. There is this ethics thing that my parents managed to ingrain in me that prevents me from taking advantage even of rich people who are fortunate yet perhaps not very bright, much less the poor..... Damn!

On the bright side, one less sin this year to repent......

Is suspect if one rings that bell enough it can make almost anything sound good from there!

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Nothing really. Just cause something does not float my boat does not mean it might not be the apple of another's eye. 🍎 👀

I guess I would not catch much flack putting most Bose stuff in this category.

Not audio per se but I am also not an Apple fan in general. I almost always feel I can do better elsewhere. Despite that, I use an Apple tablet for convenience quite often and I guess that is OK.

Usually when I hear a piece of good quality audio gear that I do not like AT ALL, it turns out something was damaged or not set up or working right. Most stuff is pretty good and worth the cost if one thinks so, as long as the whole system is assembled and set up well.

Accordingly, in general tend to think a lot of uber expensive gear that can only work well in a smaller room might be overpriced, but I don't hate it and generally that stuff should and does sound top notch as well, if done right as I mentioned above.

Also I gotta say that there are many esoteric tweak devices sold that are overpriced accordingly. Some do little or nothing at all, so they are hard to hate other than for the fact that perhaps you got ripped off.