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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 jonwolfpell

jonwolfpell
342 posts
 

NAD 7 channel Surround Sound Receiver. I forget the model ( sort of intentionally) but it was the top of the line & pretty expensive. Performed well, sounded quite good for both stereo music listening & for movie watching & had plenty of power. 

After about 4 years of only moderate use, the right channel started to get occasionally noisy for a second or two & then be fine for weeks. Finally, the right channel died. Goodwins High End in Waltham MA where I bought it seemed to have very little interest in helping me, took way too long to get back to me, & quoted about $1000 to get it repaired w/ no guarantee of success!
 

The unit was supposed to be easily upgradable w/ plug in modules as technology changed which also turned out not to be true. Both the equipment & the store left a bad taste in my mouth. I bought a nice Anthem receiver to replace it & been happy ever since. 

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