The worst speaker I ever bought

I bought Beats studio h’phones on impulse in an airport in NYC because everyone and his dog were raving about them (2010). As you will know they make music sound like a 3 year old has been playing with your graphic equaliser. I could strap cheese sandwiches to my ears and have the same experience listening to my hi fi. The only reason I’ve kept them is to remind myself that I really am that dumb. When I notice that I’m getting cocky again, I put them on while making and eating a cheese sandwich.

Back in the late 70's I worked for JBL speakers. The engineering department would buy every make of speakers to sound test the competition. Occasionally they would sell off the competitor speakers to clear out the lab. It was then I purchased a pair of BES Geostatic D120 sight-unheard based solely on its appearance. For those unfamiliar with the Geostatics, they resemble electrostatic panels and looked very modern at the time. When I got them home and listened to them for the first time, I couldn't believe these were suppose to be high fidelity speakers. They were absolutely the worst speakers in existence. I've heard tabletop radios that sounded better. I was dumbfounded that Geostatic found any customers at all that didn't quickly return the product as defective. Or maybe they didn't have any satisfied customers because they weren't in business very long. Fortunately I only paid a fraction of the retail price for these crappy useless pile of junk, so I wasn't mad at myself too long. But I did have to put up with the ribbing from my coworkers for buying the worst possible speaker among all the other fine speakers put up for sale that day.

Moral of the story: Don't buy a Beveridge you can't fit in a cup holder.

Not a speaker, not an expensive piece of equipment, not a story of how hard it was to get rid of, but certainly a parallel in the realm of disappointment. To make a long story only slightly shorter: I had been running an old Luxman L-30 for years and decided it was time to "upgrade". I didn't have very much money at the time, so I did my research and decided to get a NAD 316BEE that had been all the rage at the time. At first I loved it. It seemed to have nice clarity and musical flow and grip, good soundstage, etc. However, about 2 weeks in after it finally burned in (yes, I believe in burn in time, sue me) the sound changed completely! And not for the good. At ALL. All of a sudden, the soundstage and imaging sucked...REALLY bad. The soundstage shrunk and everything, and I mean with EVERY recording, things like vocals and drums were all very present and front stage. But guitars, flutes, saxophones and many other instruments, as well as smaller details were pushed WAY to the back and were distant, and nearly missing in the mix. And in some cases, some instruments and details were completely gone altogether! Again, the same instrument/soundstage pattern was repeated with everything I played, regardless of the song, album or format being played, how it was recorded, or what speakers or other associated equipment I had hooked up to it. EVERYTHING had the same sound signature and soundstage and I absolutely HATED it! Soon after, I found out about NAD's notoriously crappy reliability too (I was not privy at the time), when the right channel stopped working. It was still well under warrantee, so I sent it off to NAD to be fixed. When NAD called to say what they had fixed, they said it was some "resistor" that had gone, but they also needed to re-solder nearly everything on the main board as well due to cold solder joints! Great quality control, guys! Anyway, I got it back with the hopes that maybe that was causing the soundstage issues I was having. Well, the right channel was fully functional again, but the SAME damn sound was still plaguing my ears! The sound of this thing drove me utterly insane! I absolutely DESPISED this "thing"! At that point I was totally done with it. Shortly after, I posted this piece of garbage online and sold it within hours. I love my music and I can't even begin to say how much I hated what that NAD did to the sound of my music. It screwed up the sound so bad and placed vocals and instruments in the EXACT same spots within the soundstage without fail and regardless of what was played through it. At one point I was so sickened and upset at what it was doing to the sound of my music that I wanted to take a hammer to it out of sheer frustration and principle. I couldn't get rid of that piece of crap any faster. Worst product I have ever owned. BY FAR! *gets off soapbox, takes chill pill...

i bought 2 pairs of beverage second hand so cheap....back in the 80s...all 4 together they sound amazing...

Thank you for being mature and humble enough to share your mistakes as an audiophile! God bless you, best Steve!

Tell us about “the one that got away” As in the pair you should have never sold...

I thought the biggest mistake you bought was that shirt 🤣🤣

I discovered your channel recently and really appreciate your honest, humble approach to being an audiophile. To me, you seem like a good guy by any measure, and I’m looking forward to learning a lot from your opinions and experiences. BTW, some commenters are going to be jerks; don’t pay attention to them!

My friend had, and still have a pair of Beveridge Modell 5 that I first heard maybe around -87, and that sound has been with me ever since, and not in a bad way. I particularly remember my friend putting on an old cassette tape with the Beatles. I was then sitting relatively close to the speakers and in the space between them the Beatles band started to play their music, almost so I felt I could reach out and touch their guitars. The cassette tape was old and wrinkled, and when the wrinkles came up, this image just fell to the floor, only to came back again. I have never since heard music being able to image in space like this on any other speaker. During the years my friends pair have gone bad, as these electrostats tend to do, but he keeps them in the hope of getting them to sing again.

I bought a Unison Research Unico CD Player about 17 years ago - still have it but it’s drive tray has given me endless headaches. It still sounds decent, when it reads a CD. I’ve had the tray repaired and replaced but the fault always comes back. One can get around it by rubbing the inner ring of a CD with alcohol but that’s a pain to do every time. At £1200 most definitely my worst buy 🙁

Bought a used pair of Beverage 3's from a New York City audiophile in the late 80's ( thought he got them from Lyric on the east side, maybe used ). Hooked them up in a small NY apartment through a Hafler 200 amp-- they were obviously too big for such a small space. They sounded worse than awful. Put them in storage, forgot about them. Fast forward to the year 2000, put them in a big room upstate and they came alive ! but only with the right amp -- minimum 100 watts -- have been running them for 20 years. Now using the Nakamichi Stasis PA-5, and they are killer -- dynamic range, imaging with sweet highs and great bass, no mods.

Too long ago to remember the models, but I had bought the small Magnepan's in '77. By about '82 my wife decided they were not furniture friendly and I picked up some Polk Audio speakers; tweeter and two main drivers with a passive woofer. As soon as I got them home I knew it was a mistake.

I didn't buy expensive speakers I didn't like but I was suckered paying cash for supposed high end speakers off a literal truck. The guy gave me a line about them being $1000 speakers, showed me some fake advertisements and reviews about them. He told me his electronics store received extra pairs that weren't on the invoice so it was essentially free money and I'm getting a deal blah blah. Being monumentally naive I went for it and paid I think $300 for the pair. Brought them home and hooked them up. They worked so I'll give them some credit but the sound was garbage. I put them in a closet and eventually gave them to a friend just to be rid of them. Not my brightest moment.

I had a similar experience with B&W 802N. Despite I tried many different room placement, various ampifiers (up to 700W!!) etc... no way... to my ears they sounded cold, dully, totally unexciting. Fortunately I managed to sell them, but I lost quite some $$$$.

I bought some Bose 901’s after hearing them at a hi-fi show when they first came out and had a similar experience. After a while I hated them to the point that I couldn’t listen to them. I can’t remember how I got rid of them. I then took my time and narrowed my choices down to the Magnepans or Magneplanars , (whichever were the smaller single panels), and the Dahlquist DQ 10’s. Now, 50 years and 9 residences and a couple of electronics changes later. I still love them. The woofers (late 90’s) have been replaced and I always have used an M&K Goliath II subwoofer with them. Usually raised a couple of inches off the floor. Great combination!

I'm generally pretty cynical about 'audiophile' opinion on YouTube but I like your attitude enough that I actually subscribed!! Entertaining and honest.

Way back in the day, I purchased a pair of Sansui direct reflecting speakers. This would have been around 1972. They looked great and sounded great in the store, but when I got them home and hooked them up - they just plain sucked. I tried for weeks to like them but, ugh. Traded them for a pair of Bose 901 series II with the 1801 Power amp and matching 44401 pre-amp. That started a love affair with Bose that lasted through to the series IV (two pair) with a 50 watt amp. I remember going to a concert to listen to a 70 piece orchestra playing classical music and being astonished at how well the 901's captured the essence of that type of music in that environment. However, finally moved on to more conventional speakers, most of which I designed and built myself. Been an interesting journey.

Magnepan 1.7is were my most costly mistake. They were fairly easy to sell but I still lost about $800 on the pair. The other was a popular and rather expensive class D tube/hybrid amp. It was easily bested by amps costing 1/3 its price. Such mistakes are difficult to avoid when you don't live in a city that has multiple audio salons like NYC.

years ago I purchased a Denon integrated amp that Stereo Review had bragged about. They said it was better than anything in its price range. I remember paying right under a 1000 bucks. Brought it home with my JBL's and that was the day I realized I didn't like Denon. Sold it to a friend for 300 bucks to get rid of it. I feel ya