Unspeakables — Worst Speakers You Ever Heard, And Why?

The Proac Response 2.5 sounded dreadful when I auditioned them. I never could understand how they mananged to freeze dry everything they played.

The B&W Nautilus 804 sounded extremely disjointed to my ear. I heard severe suckouts at the frequencies where the drivers overlap. So you had bright, hard sounded treble, sucked out presence, forward sounding upper midrange, sucked out warmth and an underwhelming disjointed bass doing its own thing at the bottom. The drivers did not sing from the same page but seemed to fight each other tooth and nail.


Speakers with BMR or balanced mode drivers (such as the Manger above) irritate my ears. The drivers sound like nails raked across a chalk-board.

I would say that about 5% of speakers that I have auditioned sounded truly awful, while far more (50%) were just bland and uninvolving, but that still leaves 20% that sounded good and 25% that sounded great.

 

I used to work at a stereo shop that carried the Cerwin Vegas, and believe me, they sucked.

They absolutely did nothing correctly.

 

I had a pair of Nautilus 804 on loan for a weekend once, and I agree with every word you said, layman. Add them to my list!!

 

GE Triton 1s

Certainly not worst ever but worst in terms of “hi-fi” speakers I’ve heard over the last decade. The entry-level Martin Logan ESLs are almost as bad.

 

Cell phone speaker.. There are people at work who actually listen to things that way.

 

Yeah, like me when I was stuck for months in hospital! Saved my sanity (I think).

 

Gads, those Auratone speakers I used to see at some recording studios and TV facilities. There's a reason they were known as Horror-tones. Repugnant.



Dan

 

I don’t know if it’s the worst speaker I e ever heard, but I bought a Klipsch The Three for Bluetooth streaming in my office. It does make sound, but it’s pretty lame compared to my normal system. Oh well - I think I expected too much.

 

Weird way of thinking, but OK.

 

Why not use headphones?

 

Cerwin Vega, Bose, Thonet Vander, Edifier (very early model)

 

Only really like circumaurals and didn’t have any access to those at the time. Sure, the SQ wasn’t great but the music took priority and sure sounded great given my situation.

 

+1 million...

I found plans for diy speakers using concentric woofer/tweeter drivers from Celestion or something like that. 3/4” plywood, no bracing, I don’t recall using acoustic insulation. Not sure I used screws and glue, just nails.

anticipation and excitement as I hooked up speaker leads...ohhhh.... this isn’t very good me thinks. I never listened to them again

they ended up in pop’s garage hooked up to a radio so he could listen to basketball games.

 

I heard a Klipsch Forte 3 not too long ago at a buddy's house, who happens to be a Klipsch connoisseur. This is almost a decade after i heard a Klipsch....Same poor weak mids and it felt like my ears were being ripped off when he started cranking it up. How on earth is this considered hifi??!! i wondered... I went back home and hauled my Pass amp and Denafrips DAC over to his place. I hooked it up to see if the salvage effort made it better. No dice, it was just awful...still as lousy as it ever was. I guess it works for some folks, not for me. Ugh

 

the worst speakers i have ever heard were ( no offense, no deliberate bashing. just honest recollection) a pair of rega floor standers with the side mounted woofers. driven by an elict r amplifier and a rega cd player.
why are they the worst?
the imaging was bouncing all about because of the side facing woofers. the tone was midrange forward almost glaring with a fair amount of soft bass. no treble to speak of and transparency was muddy water murky.
they were quick paced though.
second worst were a pair of dali floor standers with the hash and static square screen super tweeter.

 

Controversial opinion here. Worst loudspeaker I ever tried to like (9 times). Bose 901. Liked the 301, 501 and 601 fine. Never liked the 901 (though great in skating rinks and nightclubs).

 

Sorry you were subjected to that experience. I wouldn’t want to remember something like that.

 

Klipsch.

Honk.

 

Peachtree Audio Design 5 on Sanus stands, straight up garbage.

 

That didn’t take long lol!

 

Are there any ACME speakers? I think they would win hands down.

 

One for the Cerwin Vega haters!

 

Sounded like Beavis and Butthead in the video.

 

The did Ratt really well.

 

I guess the Cerwin Vega had the “party speaker” as a target market. They must have sold a heck of a lot of them at one time. Seems like everyone has had them or at least heard them at one time or another. They did “loud” real good. Well, at least they did loud.....