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What's the worst system you are prepared to admit to ?

I never had any system that I did not enjoy listening to music. I have subsequently had systems that gave more information/detail.
 
Woeful Fisher CD player into a Pioneer £70 integrated into spare Sony midi system speakers. Disgraceful sound but it did look like separates and was therefore the start of decades of equipment purchasing, drooling and listening!
 
madmike said:
My absolute first ever system was a philips mono record player with a ceramic cartridge and a speaker in the lid. It switched on by pulling the arm to the right. That would be about 1970.
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I had one of those! Very attractive blue plastic lid. Probably a design icon now.
 
mudlark said:
mono philps cassette deck. The joystick one. The times I had taping top of the pops off the TV.

First system was bought when i left home. Rega, nytech and ackroyd.

I think I can be excused the Philips cassette.
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EL3302? These could sound quite good through an external amp and speaker. Had fairly comprehensive sockets for inputs/ outputs etc.

When I was in Holland many many years ago, I bought one of them.

I plugged a pair of Sennheiser phones into the EL3302, sounded pretty good.
 
Bose 3.2.1. It's still here, the wife and son use it.

In fact, it's looking at me at the moment...i wonder if I unconnected it and left it in the street if it would still be there in the morning!
 
I've never had what I'd describe as a really bad system. When I was a school kid I had one of these:

4082721682_27ce38e239_o.jpg


A 1950s Bush RG71 handed down by my grandparents who'd just upgraded to a Japanese music-centre, it was the mid 70s after all. The Bush was pretty decent as I recall, it had 2 10" Celestion speakers, a tube amp and a rather clunky Garrard autochanger. It also had a tuner that introduced me to John Peel, Alan Freeman etc. It was mono and I played my T. Rex records to death on it - it was way better than the naff plastic Fidelity things most of my friends had, I was very proud of it. I remember discovering Hawkwind, Man, Pink Floyd, Nektar etc on that too. From then on I've had a pretty decent hi-fi; I started as a 15 year old with a seciond hand Lenco 75, Quad 33/FM3/303 and a pair of JR149s after inheriting a few hundred quid in a will. Since then it's been a little more, clarity and refinement here and there, plus of late a lot more scale. I've enjoyed it all really.
 
The worse system I had was a good system into which I inserted a Chord 1200amp. 'Clean'...you could have stripped wallpaper with it. Still, lovely build quality.
 
Robert said:
The SL6 is quite possibly the worst loudspeaker on the planet and no amount of money on the front end could save it.

Just dull, lethargic, boxy dirge.
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Worse than Linn Nexus?

I had the misfortune of pairing them with a McLaren A-150b. That combo sucked major ass, even with a very good LP12 at the front end. This experience told me that source-first is never a guarantee of enjoyment if the rest of the chain is crap.
 
I had a sanyo music centre when I was a student and boy was that pants , I soon realised my mistake when I listened to my mates proper hi fi
 
Saisho, uh, ghettoblaster into my Peavey bass stack, with 1x15 and 2x10. The point was to use Throbbing Gristle to enflame the yuppies in the shared house.

And by God it worked a treat.
 
I've loved all my systems, as they've all provided me with hours of enjoyment. Even the one's with Wharfedale Lintons with blown bass drivers & rim drive turntables. In fact I still feel guilty about my old Teleton receiver going to the tip when my parents moved. It had such a lovely long tuning scale and wooden cheeks! I hated the din sockets though...then ended up with Naim many years down the line...
 
the worst system ive ever heard .well two of them


an all audio note system at a trade show,

and a "vintage" flea watt/ big horn system (western electric/lowther/shindo)


just dreadful.
 
A Van der Molen record player with built in amp with slide controls on the top. It had a BSR deck on springs and an arm which wobbled back and forth on its mounting. Speakers with one cheap driver in them.
Next in the upgrade path was a Sharp stack system :) Plenty of paper rounds and christmas money. My friends were really impressed with the flashing power meters and thats all that mattered.

At 13 I really enjoyed my music on this early stuff though.

Of course now I have my Moon Audio installation with custom anodised Titans, anything less would not be acceptable :D
 
peter bj said:
I had a sanyo music centre when I was a student and boy was that pants , I soon realised my mistake when I listened to my mates proper hi fi
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This was the name of a horse in the 70's, highly rated IIRC, the horse not the hi fi!

Presumably Sanyo sponsored the british showjumping team.

:)
 
This was my first stereo:

http://www.dansettes.co.uk/images/supraphone1.jpg

Valve driven, and had a drive unit with a front-mounted magnet so it could fit in the lid. Very reminiscent of those big 15" Volt drivers used in monitoring.

Then came a Deccasound 501, which was a massive step up but me, being a loose cannon who refuses to play by the rules, kept connecting my own speaker cabinets containing 5 or 6 drivers, which probably averaged about half an ohm impedance - goodbye, output stage! Dad repaired it about 2 or three times, then got bored!

Nowwhere near hi-fi either of them, but great fun, and got me into music in the first place.
 
Love the Lulu-Monde, by the way. Shame we can't have a shoot-out between that and the Supraphon!
 
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