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Your top 3 worst purchases ever


Hopefully none from me!

While many are asking what are the best preamps, best amps, best this or best that, wouldn't it be nice for others to know our worst nightmares with certain products?

:-)

My top 3s are:

1) Kora Eclipse preamp
From an Canadian member, the preamp arrived DOA. SInce it was shipped from Canada, return shipping cost and logistics are typically expensive and brutal. So the preamp was sent to a self-proclaimed Kora fan and expert in VA. Turned out, the repair cost was way more than I bargain for. The seller refused to fund it adequately. Ended up a super overpriced purchase with 2 months down time. Lesson learnt: Just return anything that is DOA even the seller talks sweet and offers to repair it to save you money.

2) Kora Galaxy Reference power amp
From the same Canadian member, this unit arrived with all output tubes mixed up. The amps kept blowing fuses and overheat. Bias pots do not work. Again, I was too nice to have it 'repaired' at seller's expense. Not a single penny was collectible from this seller, however. The unit was sent to the same Kora 'guru' who wasted near a grand of my money to fix it - turned out nothing was fixed, the unit suffered additional shipping damages, and I was labelled as a tube idiot by this repairman who just conned me $1k. Out of total frustration, I hammered the amp into pieces and sold it as scrap for $4 in Audiogon. That's a near $3k loss! Lesson learnt: Take anger management class.

3) Krell PAM-3 dual-mono preamp
Arrived working for first few days with noisy volume pot, then the unit caught on fire - the caps melted with lots of tar inside. Seller refused to take it back obviously since it was not DOA. Sent to Krell for repair, only to be told the repair estimate was near $3k (including $350 return shipping cost from Connecticut to New Jersey - $250 of which is for a Krell shipping box). Made perfect sense to me when I had purchased it for $550.

What are your lemons?
bsimpson

Showing 8 responses by zd542

zd542
5,339 posts
 
I don't know if Shakey has a good sense of humor.

"Naw, I just sold it all because it didn't go with my decor."

That's really good. It got a good laugh out of me. But then he goes an spells obtuse wrong.
zd542
5,339 posts
 
B&W 802 Matrix S3, Naim Nait (current version), PS Audio PCA-2
zd542
5,339 posts
 
Kurt_tank,

"1. Sony DVP-S9000ES SACE/CD player. A fair 2 channel SACD player and a mediocre, at best, CD player. (Thankfully bought used - still own it for the few SACDs that I own, but it was not good enough to get me hooked on SACD as a format.) Overall I would grade it as a C- piece."

I had the same one. If its still hooked up, unplug it and see if your system sounds better. The one I had made my other sources sound not as good when it was in the system. When I unplugged it everything got better. It drove me crazy trying to figure out what the problem was.
zd542
5,339 posts
 
"Yeah it is still hooked up, but it is turned off, (rarely ever turned on actually), and since I have 3 dedicated circuits, (one for my preamps, and analog source; another for my amps, and lastly, one for my digital sources), I have never felt that the Sony unit ever affected the sound."

It makes sense that you don't have any problems given the separate lines. I had mine on the same line as everything else. For me, a JPS Digital AC power cord fixed the problem. It has some type of a filter in it.

"10-14-13: Shakeydeal
VAC PA 100/100
Meadowlark Shearwater HR
Sonic Frontiers Power 2"

Did you try and play music through any of that stuff? The tubes they put in those amps aren't the same kind of tubes you weld with.
zd542
5,339 posts
 
"10-17-13: Isochronism
The thread asks for worst purchases, .... not worst responses."

I agree. But unless you contribute your own list, you fall victim to your own statement.

Now, as far as the "d" goes, I think both of you guys make a good point.
zd542
5,339 posts
 
"10-17-13: Isochronism
Zd542, I had researched each component in my system at great length before purchase.
I am happy with my culmination."

What kind of research did you do? Please share it with us. As far as I can remember, I think you are the first person that I've come across that hasn’t made any mistakes when buying audio equipment. We all make mistakes with our systems. For the most part, that's our research. I know I joke around a lot, but please don't take offence. I really am curious as to how you do it.

Where I go wrong, and probably many others, is how to bridge the gap between all the research you do leading up to the purchase, and then face the reality of how the component performs over time. There are always qualities that don't reveal themselves until after you live with the piece for a while.
zd542
5,339 posts
 
Isochronism,

"Maybe I was just plain lucky or perhaps delushioned into thinking that it actually does sound good :)"

I was going to say that if it sounds good then it is good. It really can't be an illusion. But now I find that delushioned isn't a word. I'm pretty sure I understand what was meant by it, but it leaves me in a bad spot. By me using the word illusion in reference to the word delushioned, I can't help but think now I'm at fault. And I can tell you from experience, when something is at fault, its usually my fault.

While I'm trying to figure how to get myself out of the above mess, I have a question about how you put your system together. Maybe you are lucky, but the results are what matters. You have a system that you are happy with. What I want to know is, that if you didn't demo anything, and went just by reviews and opinions, how did you get around matters of personal taste? For example, I'm very sensitive to high frequencies. If a system doesn't get the HF's right, I can't listen to it. The point I'm trying to make is that without actual listening experience, I would have never known that. And that's just one example out of many different types of personal choices you need to make when building a system. Without any type of reference, how do you make those kind of decisions?
zd542
5,339 posts
 
"Blowing boards all the time until it was too hard to repair! I wonder if I am the only unlucky one?"

Mine blew up and pieces flew out the top and hit me in the face while I was sitting in my listening chair. It was kind of funny. And a good excuse to upgrade.
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