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

I bought a pair of early Klipsch Heresy speakers. Lovely piece of kit

NO MATTER what I tried they sounded like crap.

Sold em to a guy in LA for way more than I paid for them,.

Put me off Klipsch for ages.

What do I own now? I pair of Cornwalls of course.

So there you go
 
waffleboy said:
I bought a pair of early Klipsch Heresy speakers. Lovely piece of kit

NO MATTER what I tried they sounded like crap.

Sold em to a guy in LA for way more than I paid for them,.

Put me off Klipsch for ages.

What do I own now? I pair of Cornwalls of course.

So there you go
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Klipsch is one of those brands that is high in prestige and higher in price. Never owned one, but I heard mixed reviews about them.
 
Up until recently I was pretty sure that if you print 901 in some language and orientate in a certain way it actually spells POS.
HOWEVER.
I heard a set through the active equalizer and boy, that makes all the difference. POS no more.
Just a bunch of idiots listening to them in a way the manufacturer did not intend..

I've owned a number of DUAL turntables that are fine instruments when they work, but such finicky bastards to fix when things go wrong that I'm steuerpimpeling clear of them forever.
 
I do find it odd....And there was nothing obviously wrong with the Heresy's. Other than being early and all original

Traded for the Cornwalls intending to flip em.

that was a long long time ago
 
Bill Murray said:
One thing I don't like about Sony is that they make everything from TOTL gear to little throw away junky things. I also don't like Yamaha because they can't make up their minds about whether they make Audio gear, Motorcycles or Pianos. I lean toward a company that makes only Audio gear, and does not design models down to a price level, which ends up junky. Of course so many have gone. Like H.H. Scott, Pilot, Fisher (until they pimped out their name), Sherwood (until they sold out), Bogen and speakers like Electro-voice, University, Jensen and Altec (before they sold out). I personally think the best equipment was made in the 60's before the Japanese invasion. American companies simply couldn't match the advantages of lower labor cost and mass production the Japanese had.
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Yamaha makes quality stuff from atv’s to pianos ! It’s one of the few broad based corporations that can pull it off !
 
Bill Murray said:
I also don't like Yamaha because they can't make up their minds about whether they make Audio gear, Motorcycles or Pianos.
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Yamaha' s portfolio makes more sense when you realise that their intention is to make things that "bring people joy".

Hence why they make hi-fi, musical instruments, outboard motors and jet skis etc. but not trains, excavators and nuclear power stations (unlike Hitachi!)
 
Hafler pre-amps and Adcom amps. Halfter pre-amp bought new way back stopped working within a year.
Adcom amp sounded sterile sold it withing a year.
 
The only thing I can think of are two different pairs of (small) Canton speakers. Awful sharp highs and poor bass even after recap.
 
2mmBTDC said:
JBL L100 "Centuries". Bought a pair 10 years or so, ago, before the current fad.

They generated a lot of volume - granted. But just simply confused sounding, in a number of ways. Sold them, and hooked the Advents back up.
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man, this has gotta be the eleventeenth time ive come across
this the past coupla years. funny that perhaps the hottest vintage speaker is famous for
not sounding so hot.
 
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NAD 7225 receiver, bought for my office, originally used with AR-3 speakeres, later some very nice
Polks (now my surround side speakers).

It worked fine, sounded good, and picked up FM ok with an indoor antenna.

For a few years. Then the switches started getting flaky. They are sealed and can't be lubed.
Its now useless and unfixable. Bad design.

Actually I've found every European product I've bought to eventually infuriate me for either design
or manufacturing flaws. This includes my current beloved KEF 105 speakers which had to have their crossovers resoldered
(but the parts in them were fine when I decided they needed a recap, and the resolder job cured them. )

Its not just audio ... there is the #1 home entertainment device in the whole world for the year 1937, of which I
own one that works fine, a Marconi 702 TV set. The problem is mechanical design: to fix problems in the audio
(i.e. a bad speaker) one has to remove the RF chassis, the sync chassis, the picture tube, and the the audio receiver
to get at it. Disastrous repairability design.
 
AR SRT 330 speakers

They are AR brand, got to be good, right? Wrong!!!

Although, EPI 1200 speakers might be right up there because don't recall owning them, but my vintage gear spreadsheet says I did.
:)
 
When I was in high school, my parents got me a Panasonic AM/FM 8-track player with some really crumby little one-way plastic speakers. It had the fidelity of a cheap television set. When I finally got my first pair of decent Mariah LS-2 tower speakers, I punished those pathetic little Panasonic speakers by laying them face down and using them as stands for the Mariahs.
 
My first tape deck was a Christmas present in 1986. It was a very crappy Sharp that didn't last long. I'm amazed I was able to find photos of one on ebay:
s-l960.jpgs-l9601.jpg
 
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