long term disappointments?

Several years back I bought Vandersteen 2CEs. I then spent five years trying every piece of electronics, interconnects and speaker cables with them. No matter what I tried, I found them to be dull and uninvolving. Two of my friends went through the same experience at the same time although they gave up much sooner. At that time, I had been in the hobby for thirty years so I should have known better. What a waste of time and money!

I bought the original Wilson Witts and really did not care for them in my room shortly after. The dealer would not take them back for upgrade to the Watt/Puppys - a real bummer - but Legacy came to the rescue and I get alsmost full for the Whispers which were great.

Probably the most enigmatic speaker for me was the Magneplanars many years back. Could never quite get them set-up right in the room and never did match up a subwoofer to blend properly with it's bass deficiencies. What I learned from that is don't buy a speaker if, going in, you know there are some things you're going to have to fix.

NHT 3.3's. I don't care how well they image, how deep the base(very one notey), or how loud they can play. On a short audition at a dealer I thought this was THE SPEAKER. After a few months I couldn't take the harshness of the treble.The one thing that I have come to relize that is most impotant in any piece of audio gear is musicaliy. The NHT's couldn't play music.

Note that all of the speakers listed above were very favorably reviewed in the magazines at one time or another... something to think about.