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Kit you regretted buying

Having an expensive so called "upgrade" done to a CEC top end CD player TL1X I think was the serial no - via a Trichord clock, never connected psu (it certainly never connected n my case), new caps etc. £700 bill and sounded nowhere near as good as original - so much for these kind of tweaks!
 
Quad 405 -- could not live up to its published spec.

A TVA-1 valve amp came to the rescue.

Later, a NAP110 left the TVA-1 for dead (tho the TVA needed valves by then)

Mr Tibbs
 
Celestion SL6 (what posessed me!)
Have you no ears?!?!?!?!?!
I still own a pair of these but are on a now permantent loan to my lady friend. Bought a pair of Monitor Audio Studio10 which have a very similar sound but just that much better.
SL6s are also one of the most beautiful speakers ever made.
What on earth where you using to drive them?
 
The worst thing I ever bought was a Marantz CD67se, absolute pile of junk. Was half brought back to life with a Meridian203 DAC but still not good.
Gave it away on Freecycle in the end as I couldn't bring myself to sell it on Ebay.
 
A JVC class A integrated with built in 5 band equalizer and brilliant lights to match and show me what I was hearing... had to go back to my NAD 3020 but boy did that JVC have good specs...lol

Bang and Olfusen 3004 turntable...cool for not scratching records I guess but not involving.

Pro Linear speakers....ouch...my ears have never been the same since.
 
That bit about the B&O turntable reminded me of an awful Sony direct drive turntable (?PST1) that I bought in the late '70s. It sucked the life out of music like a vampire!
 
Only hi fi kit I ever bought that was truly unlistenable were a pair of Musical Fidelity MC-2's. Maybe they shouldn't have been freestanding.
 
I sold my Quad 34 part/ex for an Audio Innovations 200 passive pre with valve phono stage built in. It sounded better than the 34 and the valve phono stage was sublime but I still really regret the sale of the 34 which was such a beautiful bit of kit (although not the ultimate in hi-fi).

All my hi-fi was bought 2nd hand apart from the cartridge and the Nakamichi tape deck. For me 2nd hand is definitely the way to go.
 
Biggest mistake so far was buying a pair of B&W Nautilus 804s.

They sounded so clear and powerful in the shop. Drive and ease at the same time. But listen for more than 30 min and your ears start hurting. A real pain over time. Luckily I was able to sell them on instantly without much of a loss.
 
Biggest mistake so far was buying a pair of B&W Nautilus 804s.

They sounded so clear and powerful in the shop. Drive and ease at the same time. But listen for more than 30 min and your ears start hurting. A real pain over time. Luckily I was able to sell them on instantly without much of a loss.

With expensive speakers like that, I would insist on a home demo. Room acoustics, especially rooms with wood flooring like yours would give an unsurprising difference in presentation to that of a demo room at a HiFi shop.

Also the Nautilus range are ruthless monitor type speakers so harsh treble is expected on amps and sources that produce alot of treble.
 
Linn K18 cartridge - mistracked particularly on end tracks.
Linn LP12 - Laminate baseboard, just sounded horrid, removed it and bingo!
Linn improved LP12 motor - Linn took the pi** and we all paid up :mad:

Taffyboy
 
Nait 3R - not even a Hi-Cap could save it.
Densen DM10 - just didn't sound natural, the opposite of reviews I've read.
Pass Aleph 3 - 'love the aesthetics, shame the sound couldn't live up to it.
Reynaud Twin Mk. 2 speakers - zzzzzzz
 


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