Hall of Shame

Transparent cables. Over priced and bad sounding. MIT comes a close second!

There are things that I personally ignore when surfing an audiomarket for upgrade:

Cables: Monster cable, MIT, Transparent.
Amps: OCM, Belles, Anthem, Jolida, Parasound, SETs
CD-players: Rega Planet above $300
Speakers: Talon Khorus, Martin Logans., any Horn speakers.

I can continue that list with some analogue gear but I'm not willing to place everything onto the Hall of Shame -- It's just my personal taboos.

Perhaps Sean is right here (he usually is anyway). What really hit me was someone disliking the Dynaudio Evidence speakers. I cannot afford them personally, but agree with the above post by the person who owns a pair. I've heard them at a dealer and, although you may equal them at half the price, they sounded absolutely fantastic to me. Perhaps it's really not objective at all, but even if it is, system synergy is important. One example: I'm upgrading cables throughout right now. I tried synergistic research IC's with audioquest speaker cable. Horrible! Extremely bad! However, the audioquest speaker cable on its own with other ICs was OK, and it turns out the synergistic research IC's are my favorite. They were just incredible with different speaker wire (Tara Labs). So, what the hell. Maybe I'll just put myself in the hall of shame for bashing MIT earlier. It's pretty appropriate, actually, I've got the worst singing voice I know.

Cables:Transparent(Overpriced)
Eletronics:New Krell KAV gear("Junk" compared with Vintage Krell gear),Goldmund Mimesis
Digital:first generation CAL CD Players(harsh,poor finish)
Analogue:Crystal Clear Records,Clearaudio MC Cartridges

Krell amps (I'm wondering if they drop them in boiling water to get them sounding so sterile?), Blue Point Special cartridges (they NEVER open up and are flimsy at best), and the worst component I EVER heard was a Threshold preamp. I had to use a tourniquet on my ears after slipping one into my system for a test drive. As for speakers...well, speakers are so highly room dependent; room properties and set up are critical to how they sound. I've never heard a bad speaker, but heard plenty improperly set up.