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

You mean, it ALL sounds that "polite"? If all music sounded "polite," that would be understandable. But that just ain't the case. Some music IS polite, but try that with Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring," and an audience would riot! Actually, as I recall, at the first performance of it to the public, they DID riot! Yup, they actually rioted. They weren't used to music that wasn't "harmonic" in composition, and it made them made, so they rioted. It was dissonant-sounding and music back then hadn't been heard like that. (Good thing rap wasn't around then!) And good thing Cambridge wasn't around then, and the orchestra did "Swan Lake" and made it sound like the Cambridge gear. Then they would really have rioted!

 

Rega RP1. The humming, crappy shielding, wobbly plate, my gosh. Turned me off from the brand forever.

 

Rotel RB971 power amp. Thought I'd try it with a view to getting a second in order to use the bridged mono function. I like warm sound but this was so dark that I had to check that my tweeters hadn't stopped working, so muffled was the detail.

 

Two items that have disapointed come to mind here;

1.Impulse H7 loudspeakers- very bright and you would require a Big Krell or something of that nature to drive them.

2. Jungson JA-88D Class A integrated amplifier- seemed too good to be true Class A amp with 80wpc, was massive and really looked the part, reports of it sounded just the ticket, however it sounded, dry, lean and very bleached, got rid of it pronto- stunning looking amplifier mind.

This was in my room, systems and taste.

 

Rega RP6.

First the TT-PSU was completely dead right out of the box. Well these things can happen and I got a new one so no worries.

The motor was a bit weak and slow and didn’t keep the speed which was very noticeable and annoying.

The dust cover was cheeply built with its hinge.

Noticeable hum but only at a high volume. Still annoying.

Rega has been on the market for ages and I know there are thousands of satisfied Rega owners out there!

But I sold mine and use 70’s turntables instead.

 

And there we are with proof substances consumed were not responsible;
Status Quo just couldn’t keep time.

Now I hear them chanting “Charlie...”



Thanks for the memories @Randoms of a friends Amstrad (incl AV)
with the period music, classic

 

I bought mine back in 1998 and it came with NOS Mullard ECC88. After a few months I changed the two ECC88 Mullards for two Telefunkens and sound opened up. I liked it more with the Telefunkens than than with the Mullards. But with those of us with budget CD players of the time (I had a Marantz CD-67 back then) I think the X-10D "humanized" the sound of those 1990's budget players, for me it was money well spent.

 

For that psychedelic sound on all songs!

 

Hafler P230 MOSFET stereo power amp. Huge disappointment! Purchased new in the 1990s along with a pair of Tannoy System 8 NFM II studio monitors. According to the studio supply guy I purchased from, that was supposed to be one of the best amp/monitor combos at the time for studio monitoring. The amp sounded grossly harsh from day one and never mellowed out. The Tannoy monitors sounded great with every other amp I tried with them - especially tube monoblocks.


stock pic ^

 

see the cheapest record player you can buy thread...

 

WAMMs?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

I faint at such a statement. Who set them up? Dave's WAMM's were the stuff of legend and sounded mind-boggling to me! (They were Dave's WAMMs, of course!) OY!!!

 

Like i said 80k at the time was a factor. I was in the speaker manufacturing business myself at the time with Delphi and Imager speakers along with amps and turntables in Encino Ca. We modified Bendini amps and used our own faceplates and worked with Well Tempered to build us our own turntables. Fun times.

 

Another dishonourable suggestion was my second 'proper , this was in the late eighties and consisted of a Cambridge Audio CD2 CD Player and the Cambridge Audio A75/P75 power amplifier and by thunder the two sounded good together- when they worked, both parts of the amplifiers went wrong as did the CD player- however they looked very cool indeed.

 

In the late 90s I bought a Harmon Kardon 5 Disc CD changer from Circuit City. I think it was around $500. I already had a good CD player but it was 10 years old and I thought the convenience of a changer would be nice. It sounded so bad that it was only ever used for background music when I had people over, which was not often. 15 years later I threw it in the trash.

 

Agree on the Rega DAC...had an unnatural "bump" to the sound.

 

Did you listen to the 4717 Shigaraki?

 

I honestly do not remember model numbers, sorry.

 

A Sherwood HP 1000 control amp; I remember it was just loud and harsh.

 

Has to be my old Onkyo turntable, going back to the late 1980's.

Not that it was terrible in itself, but just "in the wrong place at the wrong time" situation. Mediocre turntable, CD's on the rise and just soured me to vinyl for almost two decades, as a result. It wasn't until I got a decent replacement turntable / cart / stage that the skies basically opened up.

 

No, I do not remember those. May be. It was probably 10 years ago or more.
But it is just me, as I said some people love them, so it is another man treasure ))

 

Lease only

 

I've heard that in runs OK on a Mac, but the PC port was pure garbage. It was very resource intensive, unlike the native Windows music players. I abandoned the Appleverse over 10 years ago - it is possible that Apple has improved it since then, but I doubt it.

 

Sorry, but the Apple software engineers that ported iTunes to Windows were incompetent. It ran horribly slowly on the same hardware that ran Winamp or Mediamonkey fine. Apple mp3 players are no better or faster than any others, I have experience with many different players too. Mediamonkey beats iTunes on the features front as well.

 

Rega RP3, truly awful in every way...

And anything by Schiit, quality control was appalling on all the bits i've had!