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?
@jl35 each piece I had was professionally and meticulously refurbed, with supposedly all the best caps etc. Still not up to even the modest nr1200, on sound quality even (clarity, separation, imaging, bass articulation,... the whole of it) let alone the features. I'm sticking w recent gear from now on. I want coax, optical, hdmi, ... etc. Also, remote controls are always nice, lol. |
Yes: I went on a vintage binge, excited about the cool aesthetics and supposedly superior construction. All of the following were inferior in all respects (other than the LOOK of the units... I mean, come on: those old Marantz receivers are true eye candy... and the HK and Pioneers are lookers, too, and nice to handle as well) sonically and functionally to the simple, inexpensive Marantz nr1200 receiver... all the vintage were sold off at no loss, following the revelation: Marantz 2238 receiver Pioneer sx450 receiver Harman Kardon HK430 receiver all beautiful to look at, but the new nr1200 beat them all handily. I was rather surprised, but when I was honest with myself I had to admit it... |
