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What Gear Has Disappointed You?

While it's clearly not an absolute fact, we tend to have an expectation that a more expensive product should be better.  Within a given brand it really should be a fact, but because there's a wide range of factors in play when it comes to pricing it's not necessarily true when comparing different brands.  I think that it's fair to say that when we purchase a more expensive product we generally have an expectation that it'll perform better.  In the cases where our experience confirms this belief it can be the result of the product actually being better and/or some expectation bias. In a sense, it doesn't really matter which it is.

With this in mind, have you ever purchased a product expecting it to be superior only find that it was clearly inferior in your experience?

 

mceljo

Showing 1 response by akg_ca

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akg_ca
2,163 posts
 

CAMBRIDGE AV equipment

- (1);the very top model CAMBRIDGE AVR (model number escapes me for the moment ….)

It suddenly and catastrophically failed twice in the reported faulty P,O.S HDMI board ,..,it suddenly crapped out TOTALLY TWICE during its three-year warranty period. The entire HDMI motherboard was replaced each time.

The first FUHBAR was a failed HDMI Motherboard case that was only 13 months out from new; and it was thankfully covered by warranty,

The second catastrophic HDMI board FUHBAR was only 27 months out from new after very light use,…and the distributor now fought me and refused to honour the warranty. It was their BS argument that it was somehow now my fault that created fatal damage to the hdmi connectors from my alleged repeated swap-in and swap-out of HDMI cable connectors . (Hint: there were repeated no swap-ins or swap-outs ,,,,once only to set it up …)

(2) The stablemate top model CAMBRIDGE Blu-Ray player.

It suddenly and catastrophically ALSO failed totally some 28 months out from new. Because it had only a two year warranty, I was SOL. The cost to repair exceeded its FMV, so I passed on it. .

 

MY TAKEAWAY

I immediately sold the AVR and grudgingly rendered the stablemate Blu-ray player to a boat anchor status.
I replaced the AVR with three discrete high-end YBA power amps and a standalone 7.1AV preamp/ AV processor.
The BluRay player was Aldine upgraded to an ARCAM that has been flawless.

 

MY TAKEAWAY

CAMBRIDGE AV equipment is very good WHEN IT WORKS ….but otherwise is a must-to-avoid IMO.

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