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
"Yeah it is still hooked up, but it is turned off, (rarely ever turned on actually), and since I have 3 dedicated circuits, (one for my preamps, and analog source; another for my amps, and lastly, one for my digital sources), I have never felt that the Sony unit ever affected the sound."

It makes sense that you don't have any problems given the separate lines. I had mine on the same line as everything else. For me, a JPS Digital AC power cord fixed the problem. It has some type of a filter in it.

"10-14-13: Shakeydeal
VAC PA 100/100
Meadowlark Shearwater HR
Sonic Frontiers Power 2"

Did you try and play music through any of that stuff? The tubes they put in those amps aren't the same kind of tubes you weld with.
"Did you try and play music through any of that stuff? The tubes they put in those amps aren't the same kind of tubes you weld with."

Naw, I just sold it all because it didn't go with my decor.

Don't be an obtuse idiot.

Shakey
Marantz PM72 integrated, quite a few years back. defective all the way, output transistors blew a couple of times, bad phono stage too.
I don't know if Shakey has a good sense of humor.

"Naw, I just sold it all because it didn't go with my decor."

That's really good. It got a good laugh out of me. But then he goes an spells obtuse wrong.