Your most disappointing purchase or audition?


I've had a few.

bought a Naim Nait 3. Loved it in the store. Returned it within a week- way forward at home

Brought home some CJ preamp to audition perhaps 22 years ago. Noisy as anything and a turn off transient destroyed a tweeter (though years later i bought a CJ 17LS2 which I thought was the finest preamp I ever heard in my home)

Auditioned a VPI table (HW19) in a store- the store just could not get the belt to stay on. Bought a Rega instead. This was in perhaps 1990.

Fortunately, I never really experienced buyers remorse say 6 months or more after settling on a piece of gear.

Finally, there have been too many speakers that got stellar write ups which I just didn't care for.
128x128zavato
Knowing how people react to their sacred cows getting kicked, the subject matter of this thread is inherently contentious. I know how this will come across, but here goes... If you can't stomach it, instead of trying to serve as a moderator, you might want to grit your teeth and move on to another discussion. As for me, I feel this site was a lot more interesting and informative back when we used to engage in real (sometimes hot) discourse, which is why I'll defend Charles to the hilt. Though I don't feel he said anything particularly confrontational, I rail against attempts of censorship or bullying.
+1.

Founding fathers of the US Constitution are GENIUSES. When moderators censor posts base on their personal values, it limits freedom of speech and expression. Great example is IRS, they targeted and want to silence political adversaries that doesn't share their believes which should be alarming to all citizens.
Very tired of the Atma-sphere issue here so I will contribute to the theme of this thread.

Major disappointments for me? Thiel 3.6 and 2.3 speakers!!! These were way too analytical to me. Replacing these with Talon Khorus and Talon Peregrine were major improvements across the board. Sadly the pricing game with Talons gave the company a bad reputation. But these speakers are awesome nevertheless for both music and HT systems.

Another was the Audio Research PH3. Way overrated. The PH2 that I had been using for 10 years was vastly more smooth and tonally coherent than the bright and severely colored PH3.

Oh and finally, the Audioquest Diamond ICs. Wow, what a horribly dimensionally flat cable this was! I admit to using the highly tonally colored NBS Statement ICs at the time, but at least these provided the spatial features within the music.
Howdy Roxy54. I've addressed the "when he bought it comment previously", funny though how things have disappeared. Per a request I'm waiting for someone to reply to my challenge to come up with "my ulterior motives" that make more sense than the facts I’ve described.
Cheers
Tubes108
Roxy54 and Jmcgrogan2, is Tubes105 a cousin of Tubes108?

Is there something secret going on here that should be disclosed so we can argue about it? ;-)
Tubes108, what about the challenge of, what year did you own the Atmasphere equipment?, when did the problems occur?, I care less about the details, just want to shake some memorys up for everyone, maybe somebody may say, oh yea, Now I remember!, fat chance on that happening here!, It appears all of this is really, FUTILE!