What's the worst audio stuff you've ever seen?

[BobbyBluz]

I do my best to report all the white van speaker scams I see when they post on the local Craigslist. "Theater Research" & "Paramax" always instantly get my attention. I report them to the local police as well as bust them with my own expose ads on CL. I had one of those nitwits approach me in a Best Buy parking lot several years ago. I'm not going to elaborate on what happened next but will say he left quickly and he far from expected what he got. Shutting the scammers down is everybody's public responsibility.

I've had people attempt selling me craptastic things outside pawn shops (I used to make the rounds looking for things to flip) that couldn't be pawned because they were total garbage.


"This is the stuff dreams are made of..." lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmEVZ0iqVRU

 

[bare]

Odd.. My Toshiba DVD player.. Easily..outperformed MY Sony ES gizmo... a Night and Day difference, for 1/8th the Sony's cost ( to my shame).
Subsequently tweaked the rascal within an inch of it's PCB traces and "glorious' is an honest descriptor.
A Keeper.. for 10 plus years, so far, in fact I bought another against Future needs.
IIRC the specific Toshiba Model number is Key though.

 

[ggregg]

Cheap Sanyo Fisher rack systems, especially the speakers. Makes me shiver thinking about it, especially all the ones I sold back in the day.

 

[JRhoBurton]

Pioneer has really covered the spectrum from glorious to trashy. I picked up a pair of CS-G303 speakers so I could use the boxes as "formers" to build good ones. They are pretty sad. 12" 3-way. 2.25 ft3. The woofs measure:

fs 32
Qts .746
Vas 8.5 ft3

I did not bother running FR tests, but the box/vent combo calcs out to an fb of 30 with +6db @ 84 hz. I imagine they vented this woofer just to improve power handling at thump frequencies, but it makes the peaking even more severe.

The box is cheap 1/2" particle board, except the back which is only 3/8. It's a buzz bomb.

The crossover is a gem:

At least the woofer has a coil. The cone tweeter has a 2.2 uf cap, and the cone mid a 2.7. Both are nom 8 ohms. Why use both if they are crossed at almost the same frequency? This makes me want to run FR for the factory setup, then just woof-mid, then woof-tweet to see what I get....

Naaaah, that's like putting an old Yugo on a dyno.

 

[motorstereo]

Anything with an 8 track player in it. In all the years of bringing home gear I've never lugged home any piece of gear with an 8 track player in it. Whether it's true or not I always associate 8 tracks with botl gear that was worthless when new and less than worthless now.

 

[jimbo2k]

my take

A lot of the gear I considered to be crap in my 13 year forage into consumer electonics, has been embraced by many people on this site. Either I was wrong or they are. No comment forthcoming.

 

[71CNY]

A lot of the gear I considered to be crap in my 13 year forage into consumer electonics, has been embraced by many people on this site. Either I was wrong or they are. No comment forthcoming.

and what might that gear be??

 

[bluesky]

Any quality gear that broke, you sunk money into to get it fixed...and it's still broke. That becomes expensive JUNK.

OR: Bose.

 

[pdm4606]

My Uncle's "stereo"....

Years ago(70's) we had a family party at my Uncle's house. He knew I was an audio geek. He went on about his new stereo. He said it sound pretty good and after we all had a meal he played it. It was really something. The big enclosure (24"X30")had a 5" something or other speaker. No other speaker, open back. Bottom open with a couple of strips holding the cabinet together.
The main cabinet had another 5" speaker, not closed back. The "amp" section had 3 of 4 tubes, hardly any chassis and 2 teeny tiny output transformers. The radio was AM only. No power transformer.
The record player had a crystal cartridge. The main amp had a volume control, "tone" control, selector knob, and a tuning knob. The only "stereo" function was the record player.
He proudly said he got it at a bargain at a local furniture store for $199.00.
I never heard about it again. I felt really bad for him.

Paul

 

[BillyBatts]

I have never understood why some audio enthusiasts just don't like Realistic gear, but that's obviously a personal opinion, and, that leaves more for the rest that DO like RS gear. I've run into enthusiasts that told me McIntosh was the worst gear in the world. Opinions vary greatly.

The worst I have seen was actually a CL Listing on a thread here on AK about a month or two ago. Can't seem to find the thread, but some goofball was trying to sell a beat to hell Montgomery Ward combo record player (can't call it a turntable!) with AM/FM and non-matching speakers also beat to hell for something like $600 saying it was "Highly Collectible". Good grief.

Going by this guy's pricing, I guess that makes my Mac system worth, oh, about $25,000. And my vintage Yamaha Natural Sound system? It's valued at $10,000. It's "Highly Collectible"

 

[doodledog]

Haven't actually heard it, but my vote goes to the "Dahlwharfe" subwoofer in a local thrift shop.

 

[George W]

certron audio cassettes

radio shack tape splicers

discwasher anti-static brush, powered by a uranium strip

 

[Pio1980]

certron audio cassettes

radio shack tape splicers

discwasher anti-static brush, powered by a uranium strip

Polonium probably, rather short half-life and I do not remember Discwasher offering that.

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

 

[4-2-7]

Funny how poeple can't exspress their "Opinion" without others taking it as a debatable topic.

I myself would never buy RS gear as I think 99.9% of it's junk, hell there could be a truck load siting for free and I wouldn't bother taking it even to sell.

It's not the only brand I feel this way about, we all have things and brands we like and don't like. So What

 

[4-2-7]

I don't think I have ever made a post in...

Pionner
Yamaha
Fisher

and others...

I leave those people to their enjoyment regardless of my "Opinion"

 

[Hifirob2]

Everybody knows that opinions are like assholes - we all have one, and they are all going to be slightly different. So threads like this are pretty much useless.

That some posters paint with such a broad brush tells me everything I need to know about them, unfortunately.

As for throwing MCS under the bus, please go right ahead. The prices of their better pieces are going through the roof as SMART members discover just how good they are, and maybe this thread will bring prices down.

Also, if anyone comes across this thread, and has a question regarding a specific model of MCS gear, please fell free to send me a PM asking about it. I have experience with many, many of their pieces, and can help clue you in on what's good, and what's not so good. HINT: some of their pieces are true gems, and now sell for more than you'd ever guess.

Curtis Mathes in the 80s also sold some killer audio gear. Like MCS, it's model specific, so just ask.

I've owned POS gear from many highly respectable brands. Most all brands had hits and misses - it's not always fair to generalize.

Just my opinion.

 

[plainsman]

Emerson, Sound Design and most of the low cost clock radios made in the last 20 years. The clocks were fine but the radios...???? Yikes.

 

[Warpserver]

All those modern "retro" pieces of crap, such as Crosley. I wouldn't touch it with a 2000' pole but people keep buying it for whatever reason.

Haven't had good luck with Onkyo receivers either though, and that's both modern and old. My TX-2000 likes to blow the right speaker fuse, the TX-SV7M has no bass on the A channels, B are better and the modern AVRs love to eat HDMI boards. The other stuff has been fine but I haven't had pleasent experiences with the receivers and AVRs.

 

[Belo]

Anything with fake tubes fitted with LEDs inside them.

 

[zebra03]

Kraco .............................. that damn cheap 8- track Kraco I bought for my car . aarrrgghhhhhhh