Your most significant regret for having bought? Big expectations and an even bigger letdown? The one you kicked yourself the hardest for ever having bight
there are numerous items listed by others, highly respected, experienced users, that i have tried myself in the past and actually liked a lot... while i moved on, these items certainly would not be on my ’top worst mistakes’ list
big thiels, muse amp, vac pa 100 (i had/still have the 4 chassis 90-c’s), nht 3/3's... of course every component, at any level of quality and cost, has strengths and weaknesses, but i think this just shows how varying personal tastes can be, how different specific use cases/applications are, how important synergy is in systems with mating components... fascinating stuff...
VAC PA 100/100. Sounded horrible. Took it over to a friend's house. Horrible there too. One week from opening the box to packing the box.
Sonic Frontiers Power 2. Very sterile sounding with a midbass bump that was very annoying. Kept this one for a couple of months thinking I had a room/speaker issue. As soon as I replaced it, the problem went away.
Mid to late 80’ s, my Harmon Kardon 730 blew a channel. It was 10 years old, so I bought a Luxman R115 receiver. Specs were great. I even heard it in the store. However,when I got it home a set it up, my first listen was a giant letdown. The bass line consisted of the bass drum only. Speakers were original large Advent. I sold it within the year and got the HK 730 fixed and enjoyed it for another ten years. I still cringe when someone recommends Luxman.
This was a great lesson. It was the only piece of gear that I made such a mistake. And I had listened to it. Since then, I have put together what I believe is a reference quality system without hearing anything except the speakers.
@ted_denney, simple. Mark Levinson the person sold the company. I also think John Curl has had little to do with the company for decades. There are maybe a handful of audio electronics engineers as good.
As a matter of fact, there are many pieces I regret buying even though they were learning experiences. Top of the list would be the Transcriptors Vestigial Tonearm. I would be polite calling it garbage. Here is a twist. What about equipment that everyone else thought was garbage but turned out in your experience not to be? I put the Phaselinear 700 in that category. It was not a bad amp relative to other SS amps of the day. It made Crown amps sound like ----. If you needed the power there was nowhere else to go. I tortured mine for 10 years and it never complained.
Bob Carver had his hits and misses. His ultimate line source speakers were big misses and so has been every other dynamic speaker designed that way. The Nearfield Pipe Dreams are another example. If you want line sources you have to go Planar magnetic, Ribbon or ESL.
QSA Violet fuse - 711.00 down the drain. Bright, analytical, and non-musical. Gave up after 2 months and re-installed the stock fuse for 2 weeks while waiting for the SR Purple. The stock fuse beats the QSA garbage hands down and the SR purple version is everything Oregon Papa (RIP) said it was. A game changer at close to one-fourth the cost.
Wyred 4 sound SX1000 (no R) they were bad. Then I left them on for a week playing a set of speakers with woofers.
Magic. I hooked them back up to a set of my normal monitors (no bass) and left them on. They worked perfect..
Everyone said they were to dark, they were. BUT after a week of being left on, powerful mids and highs with small planars and ribbons.. It was night and day..
Bob Carver Line Source Speakers. I bought these because I really liked the Bob Carver 350 Mono block amps. But were those speakers bad! Sucked power big time the needles on the amp were pegging even at moderate listening levels. And the sound quality was terrible. I too sold these to TMR at a considerable loss.
Oh, by the way they also had fantastic reviews. They are no longer made.
Aurender N100H. Unstable, couldn't withstand power outages, factory support that couldn't be bothered to read the user's email complaint. Dumped it at a loss through TMR because I couldn't with a clear conscience sell it directly to a fellow audiophile.
I had purchased the N100H new from my ARC dealer. It wasn't defective other than arguably by design. Ugh.
Von Schweikert VR33 speakers. Were supposed to be the best 15K speaker for a measly $3500.00. Greg Weaver gushed over them, but they sucked, big time. Couldn't find the bass and sold for a $1800.00 loss. I will never believe another reviewer, ever again.
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