Hifi Gear/Components that you Regretted buying.

[Sushant Sharma]

You don't need to be a lifelong enthusiast to arrive at this juncture of regret at buying a piece of equipment that quickly changes from being the object of your desire to the thorn in your side. You fickle people..Some folks like to pursue things to the end and don't give up and then some move on swiftly.
What's a piece of gear that you regret buying for you couldn't get to synergistically sit well in your set up or it had very low resale value or things along that line? OR that this product turned out to be just plain shitty.

 

[reignofchaos]

Multiple items but recently the Cary Audio SLP 03 - this was a step backwards for me. Got rid of it quickly for a small loss.

 

[Yelamanchili manohar]

You don't need to be a lifelong enthusiast to arrive at this juncture of regret at buying a piece of equipment that quickly changes from being the object of your desire to the thorn in your side. You fickle people..Some folks like to pursue things to the end and don't give up and then some move on swiftly.
What's a piece of gear that you regret buying for you couldn't get to synergistically sit well in your set up or it had very low resale value or things along that line? OR that this product turned out to be just plain shitty.

This is easy.... I have two components vying to be the shittiest purchase I ever made .

First on the throne, sitting far above everything else are my crappy PMC Twenty 26 speakers. And I've been too ashamed to even put them up for sale. Will probably saw them up for firewood at the end .

At a not very distant second is the Devialet D-premier. And though it needs a new power board, never bothered to fix it, didnt want that bloody thing singing again

 

[reignofchaos]

The PMC 20 series was the ugly duckling. I believe PMC dealers were up in arms when the TB2i was replaced by that garbage.

Not that the TB2i lasted too long at my place but there were nice things it had.

 

[Nitin K]

It was the Definitive Technology - Procinema 1000 HT setup. For me, it was expensive for what it's performance was and sold it off for a loss after a year. Not that it was very bad, but was just average in our room with flowery online reviews and absolutely no after sales support from Definitive if there were any enquiries.

 

[bornfi]

Auralic Vega. This thing sounds clean but imagine, all of a sudden everything in the world starts looking glossy, I mean everything, the tree, mountains, your face, my face...lol

 

[fLUX]

In

Sonus Faber Sonetto II , while they were not very bad per se but did nothing much other than burn a big hole in my pocket for nothing & to.think I had picked one spanking new ( probably the only blind speaker purchase I did regrettably so).

 

[COOLDUDE7808]

This vintage bug bit me thanks to this forum and purchased a Marantz Vintage amp .

I think it was this one -

- dont remember the model now .

Could not find anybody to repair it . Finally gave it for repair and Covid happened . So the shop was shut , After a year or so when I went back , that guy simply refused to recognize me and I lost that amp . That amp had a great sound but there was cracking noise in the speaker . After this experience , I decided to stay away from anything which is vintage , second hand etc

 

[greenhorn]

So many headphones and earphones following the YouTube/chifi hype train, most prominently a taction kanon from Kickstarter and a sony mdr ex800st from Japan . After about a year or so I realised it was a scam and that my Sony extra bass series 950 was the best for my taste.

 

[Yelamanchili manohar]

This vintage bug bit me thanks to this forum and purchased a Marantz Vintage amp .

I think it was this one -

- dont remember the model now .

Could not find anybody to repair it . Finally gave it for repair and Covid happened . So the shop was shut , After a year or so when I went back , that guy simply refused to recognize me and I lost that amp . That amp had a great sound but there was cracking noise in the speaker . After this experience , I decided to stay away from anything which is vintage , second hand etc

I have a vintage Akai I keep in the closet. Never tried playing it so far. But do plug it in from time to time for the vintage vibe with glowing VU meters

 

[Sushant Sharma]

I was just thinking if I wanted to bin things/purchases I didn't like, I should have chosen Origamy. Dont like this one, make the next paper crane. If I wanted to saw things in half maybe woodworking.
But no sir this hifi is serious business and like every one will tell you its an expensive one too.
Another thought... why is that when I buy a TV or a big fridge, I am not thinking about selling it in the future for part purchase of my next TV or fridge. But with buying audio that is something I'd like.

Ok enter the Lyrita Grande horn speakers. I liked them as they were so different from the harbeth I had used for years and magnepans I had used very briefly. However the love affair turned sour very quickly. Suddenly, they looked like behemoth hot lips logo from the Rolling Stones poster staring back at me in my living room.

They weren't bad but at the price they sell for its not very desirable that you will have no takers even when you offer to sell them for 50 percent of the price. I mean somebody wrote to me saying here's a bill and I bought the drivers in your speakers for 11k a pair. Will you sell me just the drivers and yes yours are used and I had bought a new one at that price.

I have seen other lyrita owners repeatedly updating their amplifier adverts for sale and the fact is the damn things don't have a resale value. It's nobody dream to one day own a lyrita system but yes they serve as a good gateway to the tube experince till you can move on.

Another tube amp guy quotes a price of 3 lakhs for his homegrown brews and I chuckled to myself and said once bitten twice shy.

@ Manohar, same here..winter is coming and I need firewood here

 

[sandeepmohan]

My Rega RP-1. This may shock many here as this is generally a highly regarded budget record player. For all the high praises this record player received by almost every reviewer on the planet, I was a bit disappointed. This was discovered much later into owning the turntable and after listening to some cheaper and even more expensive ones. The shocker was the Technics SL-B2 that I picked up from reignofchaos. Oh my god. For something that old and not even remotely high end, this thing crushed my brand spanking new Rega. It made the Rega sound unexciting and lethargic. Then there was the build of the unit which is sub par. For something that set me back Rs. 25,000 (In 2016), that was a lot of money. Except for the tone arm, everything about it was budget grade. If anyone has owned a Rega turntable of this level, you'll know how cheap the lid hinges are built. It is the cheapest piece of plastic you can ever find. Then one day, the player decided to play at different speeds. I thought the motor was failing. Rega were kind enough to hand out a replacement for free, provided someone could pick it up from the UK. I was fortunate to have a friend travel. So I'll give them a nice big pat on the back for excellent after sales service. I had an 'Amp Uncle' who I approached to help me fit this new motor. It was during this time we realized it was not the motor that was failing. It was the pulley that had unglued itself from the motor shaft and was slipping. That resulted in wonky playback. This maybe a once in a while issue that I am willing to let it by. In the end, it was down to the sonic performance of the unit. It fell short of my expectations. I still have the player. I have not turned it on in over 7 years! Goes to show how much I love it!

 

[Nitin K]

This vintage bug bit me thanks to this forum and purchased a Marantz Vintage amp .

I think it was this one -

- dont remember the model now .

Could not find anybody to repair it . Finally gave it for repair and Covid happened . So the shop was shut , After a year or so when I went back , that guy simply refused to recognize me and I lost that amp . That amp had a great sound but there was cracking noise in the speaker . After this experience , I decided to stay away from anything which is vintage , second hand etc

What a beauty ! In all probability taking advantage of the situation, the shopkeeper got self induced amnesia & kept it for himself.

 

[heliumflight]

All Marantz & Nad products

 

[amrutmhatre90]

Faint Hearted shouldn’t open this thread

 

[sachinchavan 15865]

All the experimental purchases I made. Starting from Lyrita preamp. Once the novelty wore off, I realised it was a mistake combining tube pre with SS amp and mid efficiency speakers.

Then all the vintage bargain hunts here on the forum - a DVD player, a CD player, a DAC - either I have ended up not liking the sound eventually (like the DAC), or never using (the DVD player) or it conked off (the CD player).

Finally, but substantially in terms of cost, the myriad of power cables, interconnects, speaker cables, connectors et al one experimented with.

So, in the final analysis, my main components, the CXN, CXC, AL 8200A, CK2 have been the constants through all this and serve me faithfully even today after 6-8 years. All these were bought new, and have good synergy with each other. I realise what I indeed needed to work upon were my listening (what I looked for), room placement of the speakers and arrangement of the cables to get the sound I can live with. I no longer look for ‘the best sound I can have’.

The biggest cost in this hobby is the cost of learning (especially if like me, you find it a drudgery to sell stuff you don’t need). It helps to learn as soon as possible what’s essential for you and what’s not. And then not get swayed by the bandwagon, the hype or the bargains.

 

[Hari Iyer]

The worst purchase has been the Dared VP-300B tube Power amplifier. Even my earlier purchased like the Denon AVR and Sony vintage amplifier are still good. So bad is the 300b, that like Manohar, it's not even worth selling.

 

[Yogesh]

The worst purchase has been the Dared VP-300B tube Power amplifier. Even my earlier purchased like the Denon AVR and Sony vintage amplifier are still good. So bad is the 300b, that like Manohar, it's not even worth selling.

GiveAway me daal do!

I will take away from both of you the pain of looking at them!

 

[kapvin]

Hi, Great thread.

for me, the worst purchase was my 1st source purchase, when I just started college: A Sony TC-K81 3head Cassette deck. This was 1989, and like most electronic items purchased that time, it was purchased used. At 2000/- it was a lifetime of savings at that time. It was an awesome deck, far better than the rest of my electronics, but it kept failing and cost more in repairs and parts than its purchase price. 4560D is an IC number I still remember because I used hunt lajpatrai market for it regularly. After the 10th failure within 3 years, I gave up, purchased a JVC cassette deck new (which I still have and its still running well)

many other "Meh" purchases, but nothing that was that painful.

Best Purchase? - Roon lifetime subscription. pulled the trigger within 3 days of taking the trial. Never regretted it. (came close during the strange direction the old management taking prior to the Harman takeover-- but its back to all joy)

 

[Shammi Dang]

You don't need to be a lifelong enthusiast to arrive at this juncture of regret at buying a piece of equipment that quickly changes from being the object of your desire to the thorn in your side. You fickle people..Some folks like to pursue things to the end and don't give up and then some move on swiftly.
What's a piece of gear that you regret buying for you couldn't get to synergistically sit well in your set up or it had very low resale value or things along that line? OR that this product turned out to be just plain shitty.

I really like this topic of discussion. First I will put my general view. We often buy stuff that we do not really need and this goes for all major and minor items in our home. Audio passion is such that we end up buying unnecessary equipment's many times very expensive and we end up with rare or no use of them. All in all it is like not taking out the real worth of that expense we have done. Age, maturity and experience teaches us and finally at some part of our life we come to our proper senses and become sensible spenders.

For me in 2024 only the purchase of a Kanto sub8 subwoofer to attach with TV/audio system, a Fosi audio headphone amp and a Fosi audio amp-spk switching device all were useless purchases. Somehow regret as I have not used the headphone amp not even for 10-15 hrs. The switching device is also of no use as the VU meter in the front is not that major attraction. I did not like the audio system played along with sub as only plain stereo speakers sound more soothing to me. 2024 is the year when I have really made stupid decisions in audio related purchases.

Big lessons learned in the past also and now finally took a self oath not to get tempted.