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

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Cyclone Ranger, Nov 21, 2018.

  1. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    I owned a Mercedes back in the mid 80's and I hated the radio. I had nothing good to say about either the car nor the Mercedes dealers.

    With that in mind, I will never own another German car in my lifetime.

    But enjoy your $5,000+ radio...
     
    Fishoutofwater likes this.
  2. merlperl

    merlperl Forum Resident

    Location:
    Omaha, NE
    I am, and thoroughly. It’s a convertible c300 and I can’t seem to find anything I don’t like about it. Perhaps the company has made improvements since 1980...
     
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  3. Richard Austen

    Richard Austen Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hong Kong
    The sad thing is you arguably had Mercedes when Mercedes was good. I have watched enough Scotty Kilmer videos to know that I would not own a German car with a 50 foot pole. They're good for 3-4 years and then you better have a big bank roll.

    Here is an example video.



    In other words - luxury car? Buy a Lexus.
     
    Last edited: Apr 1, 2020
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  4. Leggs91203

    Leggs91203 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Indiana
    When I was 12, I got an Emerson K3663 (or something very similar) radio. Single speaker am/fm/cassette portable radio. Wasn't anything big really but I was excited to get it, at first.

    Basically it ruined tapes because it would push the tape ribbon in and out of the pinch rollers. I thought I just had a defective one so I did an even exchange but the next one did the exact same thing. Oh I was so pissed with that thing.

    One night I was trying to jam to The Who - Who Are You cassette, HOPING the player would cooperate. It wouldn't. I lost my cool. I went to the top of the stairs and yelled "This radio is cheap!" I then got a lecture about how my sister had given it to me as a gift and I didn't hear the end of it for several weeks. Every time something didn't go right, anything from his team losing to a light bulb burning out, my dad said, "Cause it's cheap!" Mocking me of course. I felt like saying, "Yeah, so is your face" but one mustn't diss their parents, lest you get jack-slapped.

    I have had equally bad experiences with a few other pieces but the whole K3663 experience was the worst. Ugh, just, no.
     
  5. Old Zorki II

    Old Zorki II Storm Watcher

    Location:
    near Tampa, FL
    The guy on this video got to have the most annoying voice in a business.
     
  6. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    Perhaps they did. They certainly made "improvements" in the price.

    But my experiences in dealing with them was enough for my lifetime.
     
    Fishoutofwater likes this.
  7. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    That's what I was given to understand. I bought the car not for any status, but because it was supposed to be a well made car.

    It was a very basic 300D, the only options were a sunroof and mag wheels, both were no cost options and the dealer ordered all of them that way.

    I didn't even test drive the car, I just went to the back lot with the sales associate and picked out the color I wanted.

    The car did have a good engine, transmission and body. It was everything thing else that I had problems with.

    It was a nightmare enough while it was still under warrenty.

    Then you had to deal with the smugness of the dealer's service department.

    NEVER EVER AGAIN!!!
     
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  8. Tony T

    Tony T Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Uk
    Linn LK1/LK2. Awful.
     
  9. Richard Austen

    Richard Austen Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hong Kong
    That has been a problem with VW as well - if there is a problem they blame you - must be your bad driving that is the reason their cars all fall apart.

    I have not driven a car since being in HK. But I am looking around to sort of get to know what is out there when I finally get back to Canada - and I do find it interesting that some makers seem to go up and down in reliability rankings - Honda is 12th which surprised me because they were always 1-2 with Toyota. Times have changed and they have had issues with oil dilution in the engines which hurt Civic and CRVs. Sure every car maker as a recall or some issue but The Germans have basically been abysmal for 3 decades.

    We have a guide in Canada called the Lemon Aid Guide to cars and trucks from Phil Edmonston (kind of a Canadian Ralph Nadar) and those books were more comprehensive than Consumer Reports or the silly JD Power.

    Mercedes and BMW were consistently rated as a 1/5 or 2/5. Mind you - reliability isn't the only reason people buy cars - handling power luxury are considerations and if you have bags of cash - you can afford to drop in $1,500 for a shock including install.

    Scotty's youtube videos or good - like the other poster noted though his voice takes some getting use to but 51 years as a mechanic and he won an emmy way back in the day for a TV show he did as a mechanic giving advice.

    The Japanese do seem to make the best overall vehicles with the Koreans right there the last couple of years (we'll see in 5 years how they do). That Mazda Miata often scores top 3-4 every year year in and year out.

    Check this car it out - Looking at it - I can see it easily reaching over a million miles. And it's luxury so you sort of get it all.

    I looked up a current ES 350 and you can get it well equipped for $43,000 Canadian. Which is a lot but not a lot if that makes sense.

     
    Bobsblkwax and SandAndGlass like this.
  10. Chris C

    Chris C Music was my first love and it will be my last!

    Location:
    Ohio
    They are still breaking ground at my house!
     
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  11. brubacca

    brubacca Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Had a local small dealer that only had an OPPO BDP-105 as a (Digital) source. He loved it. I thought it made every system he had it on sound terrible.
     
    VinylSoul likes this.
  12. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    What does that mean??? :eek:
     
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  13. shug4476

    shug4476 Nullius In Verba

    Location:
    London
    I originally thought I couldn't play this game as most of the equipment I have owned over the years has been OK, but then I remembered...

    BK Monolith subwoofer (a UK brand well loved by AV enthusiasts). Took ages to arrive. 50kg to shift around (difficult to say the least). It sounded horrible out of the box! But I was seriously ill at the time and couldn't measure it. I held on to it for probably about 18 months before I could finally get around to measuring it.

    Just didn't work. Horrendous FR, distortion all over place. BK wanted me to send back the amp board for an indeterminate time, presumably during which I'd be stuck with an enormous box in the living room that did nothing.

    Sold it at a massive mark-down price.

    LESSON was never to buy direct from small manufacturers as aftersales gets tricky. And I have not bothered with a subwoofer since and don't miss it!
     
  14. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    I think Lexus is the best bet for a Japanese made car and the Japanese cars are the most reliable best built cars you can buy.

    I spent years in the car business. I was one of those individuals who pioneered selling cars over the Internet. I ran the #1, Infinity Internet sales department in the US, which is to say the world.

    Across the street was the #1 Lexus dealer in the world.

    Lexus builds a much better car quality wise than Infinity.

    I drive a Mercury Grand Marquis, which I think is about the best built car in the world. Why is probably why they discontinued them back in 2011. They were built in Canada.
     
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  15. Richard Austen

    Richard Austen Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hong Kong
    Hey that's cool. You know - I don't think Infinity is even a brand that is sold in Canada? I could be wrong as I have lived abroad for 13 of the last 15 years. But I don't recall seeing one. Maybe it goes by a different name - the Honda Fit in Canada is called the Honda Jazz in Hong Kong. Most of the cars I see in Hong Kong are Toyota, Lexus, BMW, Audio, Mercedes. Very rare to see any American brand. All the Taxis here are Toyota.

    Scotty likes those Grand Marquis and I believe the sister car the Crown Vic. I believe these were popular as police cars as well. I'm not a car guy at all - so reliability and being cheap and easy to repair is a bigger deal to me. A Car guy can fix a lot of stuff themselves and so reliability may be a little less important.
     
  16. Richard Austen

    Richard Austen Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hong Kong
    Okay to make it up to you here you go

     
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  17. slcaudiophile

    slcaudiophile Forum Resident

    Location:
    Salt Lake City
    oh yes. that Project table is nasty.
     
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  18. Khorn

    Khorn Dynagrunt Obversarian

    OOOO......I forgot about this dilly. An OCM Preamp that had a “ladder volume control “ that sure wasn’t the Stairway To Heaven. In fact it was the opposite.
    The control operated in set db “steps”. The volume level that I desired was ALWAYS WITHOUT FAIL in between two of those pre set steps. Bummer!

    I also had the matching amp but, if I remember correctly there was a “dishraggy component to the total sound of the two.

    Exasperating but relatively short lived experience.
     
    shug4476 likes this.
  19. Old Zorki II

    Old Zorki II Storm Watcher

    Location:
    near Tampa, FL
    Thank you, but she is not my type ))))))
    I actually never cared much about cars in my life, the most advanced car I owned was BMW 335 coupe, but I am happier now in my Nissan truck ))). My friend had Lexus coupe with mark Levinson sound system, and I was not impressed with sound (the car itself was very nice).
     
  20. ukrules

    ukrules Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kentucky
    Has this thread been converted into "I Hate German Cars"? I thought it was about audio gear?
     
  21. Dream On

    Dream On Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    Lots of Infinity's here. Has been sold in Canada for the last 20+ years I think.

    My old Grand Prix was never cheap to fix. $1K+, all the time. So I'm not really sure that domestic = cheap or that German is so much more expensive. Upgraded it to a BMW 328i that was problem free while I owned it over four years (while it was 4-8 years old).

    I'd agree that you want reliability over everything else, buy a Honda or Toyota. But you can buy a lemon from them too. I don't worry about all of that. I buy what I want to drive and baby it. Maintain it religiously. If it's turns into a problem car I move on.

    I think most cars nowadays are pretty reliable, but they are full of complexities. Loaded with computers and electronics and those can certainly fail and when they do it makes tracking down the problem and fixing it difficult.

    But yeah, I'll stop there as this is an audio thread, although kind of a negative one. I never write off a piece of gear unless I can try it myself in my own system over a period of time, and I know I've got it optimally matched and set up. Even then it might be performing fine, just not to my taste.
     
    patrickd likes this.
  22. thegage

    thegage Forum Currency Nerd

    Because I'm not in the UK and I can't buy from them. They direct me to U.S. retailers, where they all call it an Exact 2.

    Oh look, there's someone on the forum's classifieds advertising a Rega with an Exact 2. You better get on it to tell him he's wrong, too.

    https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/rega-planar-6-turntable-with-exact-2-cartridge.944926/

    JohnK
     
  23. WildPhydeaux

    WildPhydeaux Forum Resident

    Infiniti is a premium Nissan brand that has been sold in Canada for 30 years. Note the correct spelling.

    This car rubbish has ruined this thread, by the way.

    Cheers,
    Robert
     
    ukrules likes this.
  24. John Buchanan

    John Buchanan I'm just a headphone kind of fellow. Stax Sigma

    A whole lotta hissing?
     
  25. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    Thanks. I lost my decoder ring and could not decipher that roundabout way of stating it was hissing. :laugh:
     

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