A decade plus a few years ago, adding home theater in a different room from my two- channel system, I purchased a Pioneer Elite top model receiver. Just after it went out of warranty—~three years, I think, it died. I called Pioneer for an RMA to pay to have it repaired and was told that the failure code indicated the main processor had gone bad and that the company that produced them had gone out of business … and that there was no replacement. I was directed to my dealer to purchase a new Pioneer; end of conversation. I did go to my dealer, who, saying he felt bad about my experience, sold me—allegedly at his cost and it was a very good price— a new, top line but second level Marantz, which has worked superbly ever since. So, Pioneer Elite is off my preferred list.
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?