What's the Single Worst Piece of Audio Equipment You've Ever Experienced?

No you didn’t

 

I read that the phono EQ circuit is the same as that of the legendary Marantz 7C. I suppose it would be easy enough to consult the relevant Sam's Photofacts for that.

I had one once, the power transformer eventually failed. Dinky little thing. That may have been where the difficulties reside. My unmodified one didn't sound terrible, but it didn't sound all that great, either. It had some of the classic tube virtues, but it was hummy and blurry.

 

NAD digital tuners, and receiver digital tuning sections. I wonder if they ever got that right.

While I'm on the subject- U-wire FM antennas and OEM loop antennas.

Owned a Luxman CL35 Mk. III tube preamp for a while. For the price I paid, what a mediocre piece of gear. I was told 1) the CL34 and CL32 were much better designs and 2) the Luxmans sound best with Matushita tubes, and don't sound as good with any other brand.

 

Hipster

 

Another hipster

 

Anything that cheap should not count

 

Then you better get on it to inform all of these sites advertising something that doesn't exist:

Rega Exact 2 MM Phono Cartridge

Rega: Exact 2 MM Cartridge

Rega - Exact 2 MM Phono Cartridge | Shop Music Direct

Etc.

JohnK

 

Just last night I did....

 

Not my job John. Why not go to the official Rega site and try to order an Exact 2?

 

An iPod Classic 160 GB, because it required the use of iTunes, the worst piece of software in the known universe. I started programming on punch cards and have seen a lot of bad software in my time, too.

 

I owned a modified Rega RP6 with an Exact cartridge. I don't know if it was a one or a two, because it was acquired used, from another member.

At times, I was mildly curious myself.

What I have been given to understand, is that they did come up with a newer version of the Exact, which would be an Exact 2, but for what ever reason Rega had, they never formally renaned it the Exact 2.

They just continued to call it the Exact and just put the later version in the same retail packaging and continued to ship without making any big to-do about it.

Often manufacturers will make changes to a product throughout its lifetime and still those changes are not referenced in the product name.

 

I started with punch cards too and returned the Apple player back to them after being exposed to iTunes.

 

The various headphones i've purchased over the years that turned out to be fakes.

 

Really?? Fake headphones?

 

I started on punched cards as well. Despite working in the creative industries, I never warmed to Macs. PCs could do it equally as well, the only problem was they didn't have the service bureau support that Mac's had. After having lots of Apple creatives put me down for using PCs, when I actually started using Macs I found them to be equally as unreliable and difficult to set up (with complex software) as PCs were. I did like it when Apple-heads would put me down for using a PC for creative work, and I would reply that my preferred platform for graphic work was Silicon Graphics (which I also used back then). They couldn't compete with that.

And the first time I saw someone use iTunes I thought it was the most un-intuitive and controlling software that I had seen, and vowed never to use it. My biggest frustration with it now is when I hear Mrs.Qwerty get frustrated with it in her study.

I've always said that Apple do make some good products. But not all deserve the "god-like" status their faithful bestow on them. I don't have a mobile phone (aka cell-phone), but when I eventually cave-in and get one it will be an Android.

 

Loads about.I have had Sennheiser/Hifiman/Sony/Apple fakes in the past from Ebay,Amazon and other online sites.
I now only buy from a few trusted high street stores .Although i'm paying top price i can be confident i'm getting a genuine item.

 

Bought a Sony CD player in the early days of CD's in the 80's and the CD mech had issues and would not clamp the CD's. Got another Sony unit from my brother in law when he upgraded that developed a similar issue.

I had other issues with Sony products as well. Had the motor go bad on a Sony portable, which was expensive back in the day, and had to send it in for service and had a Sony Trinitron TV with issues that were too expensive to fix.

Sony service was terrible to deal with so as a result, I will never buy another Sony product even after all these years. YMMV

 

One of the most faked product from China.

I work for an audio company and visited our office in China and they had a table full of fake products on display. Some were easy to spot for me as I know the products very well while others like headphones/ earbuds looked identical right down to the packaging. Even those that were not identical to the real products were close enough to fool the average consumer. The performance was not up to the standard of our products but in many cases not terrible.

I also went to a multistorey mall just over the border from Hong Kong in China where basically everything in the mall was counterfeit products. You could get everything from fake designer fashions, Rolex/ Tag Heuer watches, to every type of popular electronics imaginable. I spent hours there just walking around and marveling at how real most of the products looked which could be purchased for a fraction of the real product retail prices.

 

I built my first 8-bit microcomputer from a kit back in October of 1977. The Processor SOL 20, took me an entire month to assemble from bags of parts.

The hobby shop that I bought it from was the first Apple dealer in the State of Florida, it was their 2nd store.

I later became their Sales Manager and owned an Apple II and the original 512k Mac. But most of my background was in PC's.

Somewhere along the way "the computer for the rest of us" began to change into something ugly.

I think that it was about the time that the iMac's were coming out. People were no longer buying something becsuse of the quality or it's capabilities, they were buying them because they were purple.

I started moving away and distancing myself from the Apple platform as they became a new religion.

Let's see, if I want to move music from my PC to my Apple player, I have to first move it to iTunes?

On my Android phone, I just plug it in to the USB and move the files.

 

Not so surprisingly, considering that most of them are probably coming out of the same factories that the rest of the real "Made in China" crap is made in.

 

What meridian is doing putting their name to dross like this can only be monetary gain.

 

Computer programmers or whatever who go back to using punch cards have issues with iTunes? WTH kinda problems are y’all having? It performs flawlessly for me and is quite intuitive. Can’t take a few minutes and soak in a good video tutorial to get things situated and learn its features? I don’t get it.

 

You're being insufferable and your comments are either demeaning to others or dismissive.

Members should expect to voice an opinion without your crappy attitude being shown for all to see. Dial it back, son. You're making yourself appear foolish with this string of posts.

 

Just because you've had success doesn't mean it performs flawlessly for others regardless of if it's operated properly. Consider yourself lucky.

 

Anybody remember the DAK catalog from about 35 years ago? They sold all kinds of electronic stuff. Some ok, some real garbage. I was a teenager back then, just getting into home audio. I saved and saved to buy a dbx satellite/subwoofer system for my bedroom to use with a hand-me-down Onkyo TX-1500 receiver and TEAC A-106 cassette deck. Supremely disappointing. The satellites were just ok, the subwoofer was terrible. Learned a valuable lesson early on in my hi-fi journey -- don't fall for slick sales pitches and flowery reviews.