It's still early, but my previous post asking which components made the biggest difference has received a whopping total of 2 responses, so I thought I'd try a slightly different approach. This time, it's, "Which were the worst you ever bought, or those that didn't come close to living up to your expectations?"

For me, the first BIG disappointment was the Garrard Zero 100 turntable. It's tangential tonearm, intially the unit's best asset, ultimately became its worst feature, and the laughingstock of the audio industry. While the arm did remain tangent to the groove at any point on the record, it was so horribly massive that low-tracking, high-compliance cartridges not only caused the arm to fly up in the air when playing warped records, but were all but destroyed when the arm "crash-landed" back down on the record's surface. Brush-equipped Pickering or Stanton cartridges helped stabilize the arm significantly, but at the time, neither Pickering nor Stanton made a cartridge as good as an ADC XLM, or Shure V/15 III (they did later, however). Additionally, the cueing lever, while very stylish, was of such a horrible design that it was all but impossible to use it without causing the arm to skip.

The next equally disappointing purchase (for me) was the Pioneer PL-55X turntable. It looked really snazzy, and was part of the flood of newly introduced direct drive, single play Japanese turntables with that snazzy looking, chrome-plated "S-shaped" tonearm. So what was wrong with the PL-55X? Its cueing system was even worse than that of the Zero 100! It didn't cause the arm to bounce, but rather, actually dragged the stylus across several grooves before it lifted! Even the folks at Pioneer told me that's how it was designed, and couldn't be repaired!

I'd also have to throw in the MXR branded expander as a legitimate POS. Following on the trail of dbx's success with its dynamic range expanders, MXR made a far less expensive version which I purchased, and couldn't stand listening to: the "pumping and breathing" was just plain horrible. The sales manager later told me, "Your system is far too good for it, so I'll give you your money back."