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What's the most useless, over-designed, or badly designed feature ?

dshoaf said:
Those stoopid "Turnover" switches that changed the point - or knee - of the curve where tone controls had effect. Made for more "Knobs, light, and meters" at sale time but little functional useCheers,

David
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Use one on any McIntosh MA 5100 or MA 6100 integrated amp, and tone control and filter settings, you'd never want an equalizer connected, unless you seriously needed extreme cut/boost.
 
RunOutGroove said:
To me fully auto is overkill and more mechanically complex than is necessary. Something though that pulls the tonearm off of the record and turns off the motor is a nice feature in my book... even if some tables that have this kind of feature don't work perfectly.
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My old Technics SL-1300 needs work gift is the perfect reliable, low maintenance, high performance full automatic. It never gets in my way like Pioneer PL-530 or Sony PS-LX better models. It usually works with little cleaning, lubrication and adjustments.
 
KentTeffeteller said:
My old Technics SL-1300 needs work gift is the perfect reliable, low maintenance, high performance full automatic. It never gets in my way like Pioneer PL-530 or Sony PS-LX better models. It usually works with little cleaning, lubrication and adjustments.
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I had that table before I got my Yamaha pf-800 one. I was really happy though with my SL-1300 and used it for years with little issue. I was going to sell the thing until I found out just how little those things fetch so I ended up giving it to a friend of mine. it seems like the low money that those things can be had for make them a really great bargain.
 
I hate "newer" reel to reel tape recorders that automute when you rewind. I always liked the sound of of high pitched music being played backwards. Just me. I also love analog tuning dials on FM radios. I like to hear the station being tuned in.
 
I also don't get the dislike of the mute button. I use mine when changing records all the time. Tap the mute, swap records, drop the arm, un-mute. Makes any cueing mistakes inaudible which means they didn't happen.

Most of the stuff I find useless are more of a useless in the modern world sort of thing. A small list, in no specific order of now-obsolete features that I have no use for

speaker phase reverse switches
bass/treble controls per-channel
derived center channels
the stereo/reverse/left/right/L+R switch
variable stereo width controls
 
hjames said:
Saw this posted at least twice, (?), but - its actually VERY handy when the phone rings while listening to music at volume.
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I find it just as easy to quickly turn the volume down with the remote. Maybe takes a second longer than pushing a mute button. And turning that mute button off doesn't do your speakers any good if your volume level was cranked before you turned it on.
 
I have a late 70's receiver that the "loudness" function is on by default. It must be defeated by engaging the button.

As a plus it's the only unit I have that has "audio mute". It's almost always on to allow more travel and control of the volume knob.
 
I’m irritated by volume controls that need several revolutions to accomplish a relatively minor adjustment. The designers need to use better shaft encoders - what was wrong with the 3/4 of a revolution full sweep adjustment that was used since the 1920s? I have some crappy Denom AVR in the shop that needs about 10 or 15 complete rotations of the volume knob to go from 0 to full or vice versa. Completely unnecessary.
 
gadget73 said:
I also don't get the dislike of the mute button. I use mine when changing records all the time. Tap the mute, swap records, drop the arm, un-mute. Makes any cueing mistakes inaudible which means they didn't happen.


Most of the stuff I find useless are more of a useless in the modern world sort of thing. A small list, in no specific order of now-obsolete features that I have no use for

speaker phase reverse switches
bass/treble controls per-channel
derived center channels
the stereo/reverse/left/right/L+R switch
variable stereo width controls
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I need Phase Reverse, I need the Stereo/Reverse/L+R, L-R/L through Both, R through both options. I wish I also had Variable Stereo width control available for early hard left/hard right Stereo sources. Alternative for this, is a lot of space.
 
Much as I love the visual of a tuner and enjoy them from a technical standpoint, I also don't use them very much outside of the stereo at work. It gets used there because I'm too cheap to pay for data and I can't stream things on the work network. I just need something making background noise without me having to do anything, and radio gets that done.
 
Agreed; As soon as I got my new streamer operational a few weeks ago my tuner got removed as did the outdoor antenna. It just doesn't matter how good that tuner is when there's nothing out there to tune it to.
 
probably all the stuff I love such as full featured mode selector, loudness control, dynamic expander, limiter, record and playback processor loops, record and playback selectors, tape monitor switch, graphic tone controls, built in 20 watt per channel monitor amps that will drive any type of head phone no matter how in-efficient they are. And will also drive very efficient loud speakers.

I liked ability to choose different equalization curves for phono cartridges and for R2R tape recorders. Built in Dobly or DBX decilinear noise reduction was great. Tape machines with heads that were optically aligned and never needed adjustment, Flutter filters and scrape filters I thought were very necessary as were machines with constant feed and take up tensions. I preferred 1/4 inch two track machines but also with a 1/4 trk playback head. I also like 1/2" machines that were 4 channel and 1" machines that were 8 channel. Three speed machines were nice. Didn't care for cassette, elcassette, cart decks, but loved Beta Hifi machines. Auto matic and semi automatic turntables are not for me either. Its a shame Stanton and Shure stopped making their best cartridges. They were a great value. Grace made some very nice cartridges, too.

Some digital is great, some is terrible, but, most of it is compromised just like analog is and was.
 
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