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

My biggest mistake was selling my Klipsch active SP-1 Speakers (free). And then I bought a new pair of Klipsch RP-280F. For €1000,-  $1140. The sound is better. Especially in the bass departement. My girlfriend hates the bigger look of the new speakers compared to the old ones. And for that amount of money i could easily have something better 2nd hand. A good friend payed $570 - €500 for a pair of Neat Acousitc Elite SE. No ear fatigue, great PRAT, WAF friendly, good treble. Damn i should have kept that money in my pocket for something like that at least.

Also another good friend didn't hear too much difference between my old and new speakers :( 

Most all software, 99% are usually bogged down with gimmicky updates and slower performance. Even peo DSP and VST effect I've bought or used seemed to be the same no matter how close they clams if emulates this or that, non of them are no match for hardware.  

2 Wavelength Audio USB DACs, the Brick and the Cosecant models. I owned pre-async versions so I don't know if the async versions represented a major improvement.

I have Aesthetix Callisto Eclipse with dual PS and remote control, total retail is USD 24K. I have never regretted purchasing it. :)

Unlike a lot of you I have wasted a great deal of money on very poor audio equipment over the years. The worst was an absolutely divine-sounding tube amp by a company called "Melos" that (in my opinion) richly, richly deserves to be where it is today...out of business.

I bought the amp new in the early '90s and it was the second most expensive component I had ever bought at the time, at $2,400. I owned it for several years during which time it was serviced three times, the longest period of downtime lasting a number of months. Along the way, it functioned for a grand total, cumulatively, of less than 20 hours.

Shipping back to the manufacturer (second repair attempt) had to be done by truck rate because it was such a large, heavy box, and after great expense and a very long wait, the amp worked for six hours before blowing up again.

I finally got so frustrated with it that I boxed it up, put it in the closet, and forgot about it. Life is too short to suffer such frustration...it's bad for your health.

Finally I traded it in to Holm Audio in Chicagoland, a dealer which is still in business as far as I know. I was brutally honest with them about my problems with it, but they were unconcerned with my stories, stating that they had an expert technician who could fix anything and make anything work. They gave me trade-in value of $750 for it, making my cost of ownership for the amp $82.50 per hour of use!

Months later, I was in Holm Audio again, and the owner, whose name I think was Mike, heard I was there and came downstairs just to tell me in astonishment what horrible experiences they'd had with the amp. Apparently they had sold it several times and it had come back to them each time. I just shrugged and reminded him that I hadn't hidden anything from them--I'd told them all about it. The salesman reminded the owner that this was true.

I used the trade-in money to buy a pair of Tannoy Mercury floorstanders, which, conveniently, cost $750 at the time. They were wonderful speakers (very tube-friendly, which is why Holm carried them--it's a tube-oriented audio store) and served me very well for more than 15 years with many different amps. They never gave me a moment of trouble and, since I worked at home for much of that time, I put thousands and thousands of hours on them over the years.

So maybe I did get my $2,400 worth in the end...by a very roundabout means.  :-)

Dualmarantz

P.S. My tube amp now is a beautiful Dynaco Stereo 70 replica (i.e., entirely built of new parts, not a restoration) called the ST-70, built by Bob Latino of tubes4hifi-dot-com. They're sold as kits or fully assembled...mine cost $1,150 and Bob built it for me in a weekend. I can't speak highly enough of the amp or of Bob's helpfulness and customer service, which is absolutely top class. The only problem with the amp is finding speakers for it, as most speakers need more power these days.