Your top 3 worst purchases ever



Hopefully none from me!

While many are asking what are the best preamps, best amps, best this or best that, wouldn't it be nice for others to know our worst nightmares with certain products?

:-)

My top 3s are:

1) Kora Eclipse preamp
From an Canadian member, the preamp arrived DOA. SInce it was shipped from Canada, return shipping cost and logistics are typically expensive and brutal. So the preamp was sent to a self-proclaimed Kora fan and expert in VA. Turned out, the repair cost was way more than I bargain for. The seller refused to fund it adequately. Ended up a super overpriced purchase with 2 months down time. Lesson learnt: Just return anything that is DOA even the seller talks sweet and offers to repair it to save you money.

2) Kora Galaxy Reference power amp
From the same Canadian member, this unit arrived with all output tubes mixed up. The amps kept blowing fuses and overheat. Bias pots do not work. Again, I was too nice to have it 'repaired' at seller's expense. Not a single penny was collectible from this seller, however. The unit was sent to the same Kora 'guru' who wasted near a grand of my money to fix it - turned out nothing was fixed, the unit suffered additional shipping damages, and I was labelled as a tube idiot by this repairman who just conned me $1k. Out of total frustration, I hammered the amp into pieces and sold it as scrap for $4 in Audiogon. That's a near $3k loss! Lesson learnt: Take anger management class.

3) Krell PAM-3 dual-mono preamp
Arrived working for first few days with noisy volume pot, then the unit caught on fire - the caps melted with lots of tar inside. Seller refused to take it back obviously since it was not DOA. Sent to Krell for repair, only to be told the repair estimate was near $3k (including $350 return shipping cost from Connecticut to New Jersey - $250 of which is for a Krell shipping box). Made perfect sense to me when I had purchased it for $550.

What are your lemons?
bsimpson

Showing 3 responses by mapman

Stereophile provides measurements along with their reviews, which adds an objective aspect to the reviews rather than being purely subjective based on reviewer whim. I thank them for that!
I bought a name brand amp on ebay from someone on some Caribean Island once.

It worked fine but physical condition was quite shabby and dirty beyond anything expected. It looked like it was used in some tropical jungle shack by a group of heavy smokers!

I polished and cleaned it up myself inside and out and got it looking pretty good as well.

Over-payed for the condition it was in originally, but not a horrible deal. Sold it a good bit later after using it for a while when I decided to move on, in much better physical condition for close to what I payed, so happy ending for all I suppose, though I would not have pulled the trigger had I known the true condition going in.
The problem is many worst purchases may be a result of a system mismatch of some sort, and is no reflection of the quality of the product itself.