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

My opinion only, but for me there are two. The first one was a Japanese model Yamaha AVX-1000DSP (essentially a wood paneled DSP-A970). It was soulless and lifeless sounding with no real detail, verve or swagger whatsoever. It just sounded so incredibly boring! The other was a NAD C316 BEE that I actually bought brand new. As soon as it got broken in after about 100 hours the sound changed, and not in a good way. This was the first piece of equipment I have ever owned where the sound actually got worse after breaking in! The clarity diminished slightly, and the soundstage shrank. But the worst part was the effect of the soundstage itself. All of a sudden, vocals and drums were very forward sounding, yet things like guitars and other instruments were pushed way back - regardless of the recording being played. The soundstage had the exact same effect on everything I played through it! It sounded horribly disjointed and it was just awful. Within 18 months, the left channel dropped in volume and I had to send it in for repair. Apparently, parts on the main board needed to be re-soldered. I thought that maybe the soundstage issues I was having was because of this, but when I got it back it was fixed, but it still sounded the same, so I eventually kicked it to the curb.
 
Ooooohhh...I have a couple!

Sadly as a teen I was into the Realistic stuff, and the SA-1000A integrated amp was fun when I bought it but, once I built the Hafler DH-101 in 1982, I heard how truly awful that piece sounded. Its bass was weak, and it slurred all the high frequencies.

Most Sony disc players I've ever owned have lasted a year or two, and died. And more than half the time, it was the danged loading mechanisms that would fail. Needless to say, no more Sony if I can help it.

More recently: a Rotel RB1070 power amp. Nicely built, but it was the most sterile and bland amplifier I've ever heard in my life. Not only that, despite its power rating being only half the previous amp, it sure didn't have the cojones. Seemed to run out of gas quickly. Granted I got it free, so no loss there, but after hearing all the raving about how "great" Rotel is, it left me with a really bad impression. I even stopped using my system for a while. The amp I replaced it with is a Nelson Pass design, and it was nice to have something much more musical back in the system.

And I can't say I'm all that impressed about the design flaws in the Pro-Ject Xtension 10...not for the criminal amount of money they charge for it. Thankfully I got it at a cut-rate deal (brand new). I really want to move up to a Clearaudio (don't like the VPI sound, sorry), but nobody will take this thing off my hands...not without my taking a bath on it...
 
First generation of an Hitachi CD player. Lasted all of about 30 hours of playing time. I couldn't even find CD's at that time since it was so new. Hitachi refused to honore warranty that was out of date by 2 weeks. Never owned another piece of GARBACHI.
 
My first gen Hitachi CD player lasted a good couple of years before it would really struggle to read a disc. But it certainly was the coolest looking player I'd ever owned. This was also the same player which was rebadged for Denon (the DCD-2000, which was what we had locally). I had to wait a few months for it to come overseas, as I ordered it "grey market" at a far lower price ($500 vs. $1,000).

I just found a page showing all of the variations on the Hitachi.

http://1001hifi.blogspot.com/2015/02/vertical-cd-player-part-1.html
 
Linn Majik CD player.

Sounded great however completely unreliable.
A 2K paperweight.

Replace Linn Majik with Nakamichi OMS-7 and that would be my exact same experience. I still think that Nak was the best sounding player I owned until I got the Oppo 105. Poor Nak went a year or so before the laser started acting up, and it would freeze while playing a disc. Nak's factory service replaced the laser and after two months, back to the same thing. Ended up dumping it for $25 locally to some dude who collected and repaired Nak gear.
 
i been lucky to own a lot of different audio -from low end to high end. the worst piece of crap called audio i ever owned was a parasound amp back i guess in the 80's?, bought from a midwest audio dealer ,after 5 repairs i sent back to parasound with a letter, the president sent me back a letter calling me EVERY NAME IN THE BOOK, and some more, i will never own any junk made by parasound again.
 
I might have answered this thread before, but my answer [again] is Dynaco SCA-80Q integrated amplifier. Julian Hirsch was a hack. Wouldn't have known Hi-Fi if he had tripped over it.
 
The Pioneer Home Theater in a box, I bought when I thought surround sound was cool. I went back to HI-FI pretty quick.
 
Back when I was young and stupid - bought a pair of white warehouse(before there was the van there was the warehouse) "Fisher" speakers. Played them for a while, sounded so-so - 3 Way system with 10" woof and 10" PR. Finally got around to opening them up. The PR was just a cone with a piece of cardboard glued on the back, not much of a xover that I can remember. Sold them to this guy in college who fell in love with them(for whatever reason). Sold for more than I paid, I still feel guilty about that.
 
I bought a B&K stereo pre-amp (forgot which model) years ago for a Carver power amp I had that sounded absolutely lifeless, with no redeeming features whatsoever. I took that back within a few days (and was harassed by the store for doing so) and then got a top of the line (for the time) Rotel pre-amp at another store for the Carver instead and that combo mated with a high-end Sony CD player was one of the best sounding systems I ever had. Amazing what a difference a good pre-amp can make!
 
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A GARBACHI (some people call it Hitachi) first generation CD player. Paid 1,000 dollars for it. It was so new technology I had trouble getting CD's. Failed in 13 months. GARBACHI did nothing to make it right. Never owned or will own another piece of GARBACHI again.
 
Emotiva ERC-3. After I bought it in late 2014 and I had to wait 4 weeks for delivery. When it showed up it worked great. Then at week 3 it started dropping audio on CD's it previously played and out-of-the-box brand new CD's. Called Emotiva for replacement (still under 30 days) and they said the replacement would take 6 weeks to arrive. Waited 6 weeks for the new replacement and it was dead in the box. Called Emotiva and their solution was to send me a refurb. Told them no thank you and got my money back.
 
ROTEL RC1550 Preamp. Did not work with my system at all. It seemed to suck the life out of the music. Had it for all of 3 weeks before I moved it along. The new owner was quite happy with it.
 
My two worst pieces of gear was a Sansui 331 receiver rated at about 15 watts. It had replaced a Yamaha CR420 that I had loved, but was destroyed in a shipping accident. The Sansui was just anemic. I was in a Navy barracks and the guy next door had a Phase Linear that pumped out something like 200 watts into a pair of Bose 901 speakers. I couldn't hear my music over his. After I burned up the Sansui trying to keep up, I replaced it with a Pioneer SA9900 110 watt integrated amp. I never lost my battle against the guy next door again. The other piece of crap that I loathed were a pair of Bose 601 speakers (I couldn't afford 901s, but that's probably a good thing because those were really inefficient). Cripes those things were horrible. Weak highs. No lows. Muddled middle. Worse pair of speakers I've ever owned. Anyway, they couldn't handle Black Sabbath at party volume in a battle of the dorm rooms and I had to replace them. :D
 
This one really took the cake:
Never got close to owning it. A dude at work let me tryout an ESS preamp. Sounded incredibly less than one-dimensional, by far the worst thing I have ever put a signal through.

Slick looking on the outside. On the inside, not so much. Strictly Velveeta and a few 741 op amps.

I might like to try it out with some Boise 901's. Who knows? Sorry, I forgot it's April 19, not April 1.

If its intent was to be used with electrostatic loudspeakers maybe its sonic reticence would be explained.
 
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