What's the most overrated or overpriced piece of equipment you own, have owned or come by?

I own the direct stream after trying a few dacs. Defiantly don't regret it. no problem with Hi res. Try every dac u can get your hands on.

Biggest regret was a denon blu ray player. $400 piece of junk that denon didn't even care about so they never updated the firmware

I do own a Bose Acoustimass III Series passive subwoofer that i bought for ~$10 and that i just adore...It sits hidden up behind and driven by a Fujitzu 55" Plasmavision in my wood paneled bedroom, where it feeds 2 mismatched Klipsch center channel speakers (SC: 5,  aimed left and KV - 1, aimed down), also hidden and paid about the same price...
They yield a quite surprisingly pleasant and unobjectionable result. Haha

Very good and interesting perspectives here guys. Happy Listening!

When trying out an Ayre Codex, was able to try out some very expensive cables (greater than $1K price range) between the Codex and our amplifier.  On a single-blinded test ( spouse was changing the cable ) I was not able to tell the difference between them and ordinary cables.  So we certainly did not purchase them.  but very happy with our Ayre Codex purchase.

I've pretty much been disappointed with ALL my purchases for one reason or another, believe it or not. Simply because, either the hype was so great about a given component and it didn't live up to it, or I just couldn't afford to get the good stuff and satisfy my very picky ear. Now as I get older, I make enough to get the "good stuff", AND I seem to make better choices about my gear, and not make all the dopey mistakes that I did when I was younger.