What about a product can irritate you?

Remote copntrols that don't work. I have a Sears $120 air conditioner beside my bed. I can point the remote at the opposite wall and the AC will respond properly, yet the 4 pound $500 wonder that came with my Wadia has to be pointed right at the CDP to work well. I had an Acurus preamp that would guess at what you wanted if it couldn't read the remote, often shifting the balance instead of the volume. As if we weren't worried about enough things already!

+1, Markphd. My fingers don't like binding posts that are too close together. I have a terrible time tightening the things down. Then there are the WBTs on my Kharmas. The only provision for spades are these little guides at the bottom of the posts that I have to slide the (in my case very fragile) spades through. The cables must connect to the under side of the posts, so my flat (and did I mention fragile!) cables must contort down, around, and up to make it to my amp's terminals. Oh, right, and then the binding posts are completely smooth. You can't get a good grip on them nor can you use a bindng post wrench. Good greif on $15K speakers. Thank goodness they sound pretty frickin' awesome.

Then of course there's my perfectly good power amp with its perfectly crappy stock power cord hardwired on so I can't try different PCs without custom ordering them nakey on one end, soldering the thing on, and crossing my fingers that I dig it. Yuck, I'm dangerous with a soldering iron.

Hi, sorry to change the TITLE a little,
but MY pet peeve is with SONY!
Every product I buy with the Sony name on it,
BRAKES DOWN EVEN before the warranty is over with.
Everything from a web-tv unit for my cousin,
to CD players, vcrs, minidisc recorders!
As of now, I will NEVER buy another Sony product!
The SAME goes with YAMAHA! Tuner AND Pre-Amp,
both broke, and Yamaha does not have the parts to fix
them.

Sorry to say, but appearance is high on my list of nits. I find it hard to be a fair sonic judge of FUGLY components. Maybe a black curtain or something would help.

Phono cartridge pins and connectors. Are they ever going to standardize the size? And the fact that some tonearms only allow the use of bolts and nuts and some carts are self-threaded. Mounting cartridges is traumatic enough without this nonsense to contend with.