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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
Post removed 
shakeydeal
979 posts
 
"For me, all 3 came to Audio Research VT100! I got all 3 versions and they all needed repairs after repairs!!"

You didn't learn your lesson after the first one?

Or the second one........?

Shakey
timrhu
2,779 posts
 
"You didn't learn your lesson after the first one?
Or the second one........?
Shakey"

It must've really sounded good.
riffer
362 posts
 
Grado PH-1 phono stage. Worst sounding phono stage I have heard. Other than that, I have had good luck.
mallen123
110 posts
 


Other than my mid fi HT gear, which i
Iiked but always has horrible resale due to format and connectivity obsolescence, the following are my worst purchases:

Cheap BDplayers- my 1st Blueray player, Samsung , sounds horrible on music and is worth nothing on resale market.

Tom Evans Groove - lived with it for about 7 yrs, never happy with the sound and could never get rid of the hum picked up from my pre amps transformer.

2yrs after buying it used, one channel went out and the really wierd US distributor charged me $900 to have Tom fix it, plus i had to send it back to England myself.
Finally bit the bullet and bought a Zesto which fixed the hum and was significantly better sounding. Even tho I bought groove at 50% off $4000 retail, I still took a 35% loss to sell it not including the $900 repair.

Tom generally has a very good rep, so don't want to bash his company, but the Groove was not a good fit in my system.
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