advertisement


The Worst Sounding Piece of Kit You've owned.

Blueroom Minipod speakers. Bought on a whim for a second system, I actually thought the HF was disconnected from them, such was their totally dull, treble-absent sound. Must have been a total system mismatch as I doubt any company would release something so bad!!!
 
Also a NAD CD player - the 5320 in my case. Bought in 1989 or there abouts for £179. Flimsy build and made everything scream and shriek. Lost faith in the medium and didn't revisit until LPs were all but unavailable, by which time CDPs had improved a lot.
 
Hoopsontoast said:
Antique Sound Labs (ASL) Wave, little 8w Monoblocks, weak bass and grainy sound. Terrible.


System by Robert Seymour, on Flickr
Click to expand...
You sold them to me for use in my office system. I sold them a year later to a bloke in Europe somewhere. Except for nearfield listening at low volumes, they were quite poor.

In the early 1990s I had a NAD3240 PE driving Cyrus 780s for a while. The speakers were quite decent given the price but that amp was absolutely terrible.
 
davidsrsb said:
A RTVC 30x30W kit ampilfier, they has a shop in Tottenham Court Road in the 70s.
It had a wallowing bass, which looking back was the due to the tiny transformer and single rail design with too small capacitors on the outputs and boot strapping
High frequency crossover was also audible
https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/showthread.php?t=137725
Click to expand...

Crikey, that takes me back! I built one of those too, but I cannot recall what it sounded like.
 
The only item I ever threw out in disgust was a Shure M75EJ I bought with my Pioneer PL12D way back in 1974?
Replaced with an ADC VLM.
 
For me, I've had two items that were not to my liking. First was a SVS sealed sub (can't recall, maybe SB12 or something like that). Tried a number of different locations & settings but was always a one note bass wonder when trying to integrate with my towers which were far superior at bass quality. Second & more recently were the Focal Aria 906's in the small system, probably not to my taste & the partnering gear & room likely didn't help the situation (they got swapped for Dynaudio M20's, which were a much better match for me, then more recently Totem Sky towers)
 
Had a pair of Marsden Hall Annexe speakers, 1975ish. Bought because they looked impressive. About the size of a fridge!

Not good. Sold them to a colleague who was also impressed by the size, luckily wasn't bothered about the performance.

Bob F
 
Bob F said:
Had a pair of Marsden Hall Annexe speakers, 1975ish. Bought because they looked impressive. About the size of a fridge!

Not good. Sold them to a colleague who was also impressed by the size, luckily wasn't bothered about the performance.

Bob F
Click to expand...

An interesting name for a speaker; did you want to banish them to an Annexe or they were so big you could use them as one (or two)?
 
Some ridiculously expensive Audio Research valve pre power amp on home dem.

It was incredibly heavy and over engineered. Even the volume control was hard work due to detent operation.

Could never get it to sing with my LP12 and Epos11s. Don’t think it was meant to!
 
iu
 
I'm hesitant to list some of the stuff I think has been guff, for fear of being lynched.

Aside from a couple of speaker models anything Rega I've heard has varied from ultra bland to just not very good. Biggest disappointment being a P9/Apheta combo, although to be fair I perhaps should have tried it with a fruitier cartridge before getting rid, but still, not my thing.

Heed Quasar phono stage. What a massive let down that was, it was a one off with a massive Heed PSU as well, just sounded of nothing really, I've heard better on board stages in integrated amps.

*The little external phono stages* most, if not all of the little one box external stages like the Schiit Mani, Lehmann, Slee, Rothwell type. I've probably heard a dozen and if I threw a rug over them whilst you swapped them around I wouldn't know that you'd changed anything, aside from the P75 in Dr T mode they're all a massive meh and not worth bothering with.

Not been too keen on the direct drive TTs I've tried either, although only a couple of Technics models - various SL1200s with various arms and an SL-150 with a Tecnoarm. Although thinking about it the Rega arms might be the weak link with these, I should perhaps try one with a decent arm first before writing them off.

Come at me.
 
monitor audio R852MDs in the late 80s. Rave reviews and I really like sealed enclosures. Listened to them in the guy’s flat and thought “these sound like crap....it must be the rest of his system...rave reviews”. Got them home and they immediately sounded like crap. Thought, I’ll wait a day, maybe I’m a bit tired. Nope, sounded just as I remembered. Managed to get them sold for same price two weeks later (rave reviews...).
 
Bob F said:
Had a pair of Marsden Hall Annexe speakers, 1975ish. Bought because they looked impressive. About the size of a fridge!

Not good. Sold them to a colleague who was also impressed by the size, luckily wasn't bothered about the performance.

Bob F
Click to expand...
Pics!
 
Surprised to see Focal Aria 906 speakers mentioned in this thread as the ones I owned a couple of years ago were a massive improvement on my most disappointing piece of kit, some Tannoy XT6F floorstanders. Sounded great in the dealers large demo room on the end of a Naim amp, horrible almost unlistenable boomy mess in my small flat on the end of an Audiolab 8300 amp only partially rectified by putting them virtually in the middle of my lounge.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top