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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
isochronism
2,893 posts
 
Sentence example: You are delushioned with feelings of self grandeur.
Think outside the padded cell :)
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?
marqmike
838 posts
 
Iso
10-21-13: Isochronism
Sentence example: You are delushioned with feelings of self grandeur.
Think outside the padded cell :)
'Actually' very funny.
isochronism
2,893 posts
 
As Winston Churchill said, "My tastes are simple: I'm easily satisfied with the best"
But really, I had decided on a SET based system, without hearing one prior. I finally decided upon a particular maker. My Preamp choice was complimentary by "specs".
To be honest, most of my cables were somewhat quickly purchased here by choosing popular brands and models that would be easily resold when that part of the chain is ready to be more "refined" by listening, and given the fact that I am in a temporary small apartment, that will have to wait until I move.
You can read the thread titled "calling all horn lovers" where I describe a pair of speakers that I have which are waiting in the wings to be for a larger location.
A very well respected manufacturer, (and certainly by me) who shall remain nameless for now, said "You'll have about 100 percent chance chance of getting them wrong" That will be more challenging. We'll see in due time :)
isochronism
2,893 posts
 
To sum up...
Is my system perfect? No.
Do my speakers go very low and very high? No.
Do they have full coherence through their frequency range? Yes!!
Am I satisfied with it? Fully %100! (Until I move)
Am I an Audiophile? Apparently not.
Am I a Music lover? Yes, %100
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