The worst piece of HiFi Equipment you've ever owned?

I used to own the TX-11b. Great performing tuner with average sound quality is the best way to describe it. I also have an Onkyo T-9090 II that trumps it. Anyways, the 11b is long gone from my system and don't miss it one bit.

My experience with the TX-11 tuner is the same as yours. The TX-11B is supposed to be better though...
 
Back in the 70's a Sankyo cassette deck-took it back for a Pioneer CTF-500 that sounded way better- but cheap heads-that wore out (causing left chennel drop out) within a few years-replaced with a H/K.
Omega 300's-boomy 'fake bass" with zero extension. Pioneer HPM 100's-don't get it- a super tweeter that only dogs can hear-but 1 step up. DLK 1 1/2's were a much better choice IMHO at the time.
Accutrac 4000-died 1 month after the warranty.
Carver TX-11. Sensitivety at the price of sound quality-like listening through a tin can. Zero stereo seperation, and high thd.
Carver M-400t. Carver M-500t. Carver M1.5T. Lack of fidelity and depth in each case-boomy, over emphasized bass IMHO
Pioneer Spec 4-and Phase Linear 400-must be brothers in arms-power but no delicacy of sound IMHO.
 
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•*Radio Shack Optimus CD-3400 Portable CD Player
- Stereophile hyped this up back in the 90's along with others comparing it to $1000+ CD players
- Reality check: It was decent sounding for a portable but not anywhere near the giant killer that it was supposed to be.

Sony Playstation 1 (SCPH-1001)
- Again another CD player that was hyped by the audio media and the internet touting it as an audiophile caliber CD player.
- Reality check: Inoffensive to the point of being offensive. Again, not the giant killer that it was supposed to be. To be fair, I never purchased this for the sake of using it as a CD player. I bought it as a video game console to play video games on in the mid 90's. I had it stored away in a closet and pulled it out to try it out after listening to all the hype. At least it resulted in one good outcome. Since it was pulled out of the closet, it gave me the incentive to sell it on eBay for $280 along with a bunch of PS1 games.
 
Carver TFM-25 amp. Dull, lifeless, thin, and flat sounding with flabby, poorly defined bass. For all its watts, the TFM-25 could not handle the woofers in my Infinity RS-IIIb's.
 
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Wow such a diverse range of audio disappointment! Mine was the Marantz SR1000. My first foray into vintage gear because I thought it looked cool. It sounded limp. It wasn't in great condition and probably needed an overhaul. It still sits in my linen cupboard behind the towels as a silent testament to that occasional poor score.
 
There's been a few shall we say, "underwhelming" pieces of gear, of which noe have been kept, but sold off rapidly. A fairly recent one that comes to mind is a pair of Bose 301's, which a friend very kindly gave me on loan to use in my garage. Holy Hell, they were completely unlistenable, flat and lifeless. I actually listened to them for about a minute and a half, before disconnecting them and returning them to their owner.
 
MARANTZ 6100 turntable.

I searched and searched for one, loved the look of the Marantz tt's (in pictures) until I bought one off of craigslist. The guy I bought it from was about 100 miles away in a mountain town and was coming to my city, so I met him in a parking lot. He had it boxed up nicely so I really didn't inspect it until I got home. It was in great condition- but very cheaply built in my opinion. Sold it a month later. Now I own a Pioneer PL-550 and a Kenwood KD-750. I love Marantz equipment, but not their tt's.... I don't think Marantz actually manufactured these, did they ??

I have a 6200 , same as the 6100 but with pitch controls. I agree, it looks OK but very cheaply made...the lightest tap on the plinth will make your woofers move a lot of air!
 
There's been a few shall we say, "underwhelming" pieces of gear, of which noe have been kept, but sold off rapidly. A fairly recent one that comes to mind is a pair of Bose 301's, which a friend very kindly gave me on loan to use in my garage. Holy Hell, they were completely unlistenable, flat and lifeless. I actually listened to them for about a minute and a half, before disconnecting them and returning them to their owner.

I know, I had a pair too and you really need a loudness button and bass & treble knobs to get them listenable. I bought a mint pair of series II's w/original boxes on Ebay for an embarrassing amount of money and ended up giving them away to a non audiophile friend who needed speakers.
 
I know, I had a pair too and you really need a loudness button and bass & treble knobs to get them listenable. I bought a mint pair of series II's w/original boxes on Ebay for an embarrassing amount of money and ended up giving them away to a non audiophile friend who needed speakers.

Cool avatar!:thmbsp::thmbsp::thmbsp::thmbsp::thmbsp:
 
Easy....it was a "pro" Marantz cdp + cd burner combo. Despite it's "means business" looks, it was an unreliable piece of crap that had trouble finalizing discs and completely bit the dust in less than one year. Marantz claimed they couldn't fix it as "parts were no longer available", even though the same machine was still in stock at many stores. The only other thing I can think of is how many people I know that purchased Sony gear only to have it fail in short order or come up way short in performance for the money spent. Bleah.
 
Adcom GFA-535II for me. I got a nice deal on it, but thought it lacked in the mids and the highs were enough to bleed the ears. The only speakers it sounded good with were my Dynaco A25s...so I gave a friend the combo as a house warming gift.
 
The interesting thing about this thread is how many sacred cows turned out badly with people here. However, no one will doubt my choice, a BSR changer that was my first turntable. Its wretched legacy lives on, in the 50-75 records I still have from my college days that have the high end and inner grooves damaged by that evil POS. Thank god it only took 2 years to die.
 
Nothing really bad here, but I wasn't thrilled and sold them rather quickly.

Radio Shack Mach III: Not bad but didn't do anything for me. ended up in a closet less than a year after I purchased them, then sold a few months later.

Minimus 7: As I recall, they had too much mid-bass emphasis. A typical issue with many lower cost small speakers. Sold 'em.

JBL Sub-12: actually my parents. Sounded fine, but quit after two years of light duty use. Opened the amp module find an acrid smell inside and big burn spot on the board. Googling found several others had the same problem. $185 to fix and part out of stock. Ditched it.

Cerwin Vega HT-12D passive sub. Very boomy bass. Not smooth at all.

As you can see, most of my issues are with speakers. Even the cheap receivers and other electronics I had were quite good. Some of the worst stuff I had was for car audio: Amps that quit or sounded bad when pushed, Speakers that were so boomy sounding, I had to stuff socks into the ports... I did have cheap record changers and all-in-ones, but those don't really count.
 
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I would say an RS Optimus sub, I bought at a half price sale at RS. 10 inch woofer and a 120 watt amp. I put it with my Koss stats. Talking about something that brought your speakers down a couple of notches. It did look very nice.

Still have it, but replaced the amp and the woofer with alot better stuff.
 
B&W speakers- didn't matter what I connected them to, or what source I used. Overbuilt and overpriced for the sound. I had the 802F, CDM1- NT and P4.

McIntosh C28, MC 2105- lifeless.

NAD- hit-and-miss on build quality/functionality. Good sound when it worked, though.

Parasound- owned five of their amps, every one of them had a quirk, and two died. Didn't want to cough up the dough to fix them, so the three working ones got sold, and the dead ones went to the recycler.

American Acoustics/MTX- cheap construction, lousy sound. Everybody bought them back in the day at American TV when they couldn't afford the real stuff. I auditioned a pair for one night, and promptly took them back the next day. Bought a pair of Polk Monitor 10s instead. Wish I still had the Polks.
 
Had a pair of BSR floorstanders, which I bought from the infamous DAK back in California. They had tweeter and mid in the top panel, plus on the front baffle, and a 15" woofer, and were probably the most atrocious-sounding speakers I have ever owned. I used them with a Luxman receiver, which couldn't help them, and their sound could be best described as "boom sizzle", with a midrange that was pretty much AWOL. I couldn't get back to DAK to return them for two weeks, and needless to say, the system didn't get used during that time.
 
Blo$e 601 series III speakers. Hated them from day one. Paid around $600 for them in 1988. I finally dumped them in 1994 for $100.

Sparkomatic 6x9 car speakers mounted in cardboard boxes would sound better.

That's funny... :)
 
Mine would be my Sony 1000esd digital pre amp, the things in mint condition and i got it cheap enough, i totally dug the parametric EQ as well as some of the other features and the overall build quality looked to be very good as most ES models are, i have several other Sony Es models that are superb and i soooo wanted this one to sound good, but for whatever reason be it age or by design it just doesn't sound clean, not like the Sherwood AP7020 pre amp i finally tracked down to go along with the Sherwood AM 7040 amp i was using the 1000esd on.
 
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