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Highly praised hear you just didn’t care for?

Have you ever owned any gear that’s gotten universal or near universal praise that your ultimately just didn’t care for at all? 
 

I once owned a Linn Troika cartridge. In the Linnosphere this is a highly regarded and dare I saw worshipped cartridge. Well, I bought one, and yes, midrange and above it was lovely but the cartridge, to my ears, was dynamically deficient. My next cartridge was a Linn Arkiv B which I found far more satisfactory. 
 

All was not lost- I sold my Troika to someone who was thrilled to have a Troika. Actually sold it for more than I paid. I will say the Troika was a nice shade of red and was very easy to mount. 
 

 

zavato
chayro
3,094 posts
 

I’ve owned a lot of gear, but the only one I really disliked was the Esoteric X-05 SACD player, that got great reviews. I bought it in mint condition from a local guy who was upgrading to the X-03.  It was beautifully made and I wanted to love it, but it sounded dry and lacking in harmonics, even after 6 months. I finally sold it to another local, but I insisted he listen before buying, which he did. I’m not sure, but I think he sold it shortly after. I have no experience with any other Esoteric products, so I’m not extrapolating my experience to the rest of the Esoteric line. 

ozzy62's avatar
ozzy62
3,737 posts
 

Twice that I can remember.

First time was a VAC PA 100/100. Great reviews. Hated it. Sounded like bad SS.

Another time was a Sonic Frontiers Power 2. I had high hopes for this one because I had fond memories of an SFD2 DAC that I had previously owned. But no bueno. I couldn't get rid of that amp soon enough.

rpeluso
1,141 posts
 

Last year I purchased a new direct drive turntable (around $3,000) and had a Sumiko Starling cartridge ($2,000) pre-mounted and adjusted for the table/arm.  I found the sound so grating and harsh that I replaced the cartridge with a wonderful $1,500 Grado and sold the Starling for half of what I paid for it.  

zlone
1,409 posts
 

I had a Puritan PSM156 power conditioner and I swear it added noise to my system. Sometimes I think I just had a dud as people really like these. I moved on to a PS Audio regenerator, and that has worked well.

cleeds
6,628 posts
 

Koetsu Black phono cartridge. No matter what I did it just never sounded alive. I was using it with an Oracle Delphi III and Fidelity Research FR-64. 

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