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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
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. 

mitch2
4,767 posts
 

Assuming "gear" not "hear", for sure.  Alon V speakers that I (repeatedly, hopefully) worked with Carl to upgrade to Circe level with the results being like Charlie Brown kicking a football while Lucy was holding.  Based on the reviews, I kept thinking the "one next upgrade" would result in a great sounding pair of speakers but through each upgrade I never really liked them.  Also, most Ayre gear (DACs, CD players, preamps), which I found to sound too clinically sterile and lacking meat on the bones, at least to my tastes although many really like the stuff.

rockadanny
1,265 posts
 

A pair of Cardas IC cables ($1k) - to me muddied up the sound.

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