There are a lot of positive threads about buy/selling and experiencing gear.
Thought it could be fun to share our biggest mistakes in purchasing/selling gear. Live and learn as they say
As far as functioning gear that really disappointed me, Empyrean (was expecting this), Verite Open (although I did not run it off a tube amp so that may be on me), and 007 (although I didn’t use a super high end energizer).
As for as mishaps, some notable ones include my TH900 Lawton getting lost in the mail (and I did not insure…) and LCD 3 Prefazor arriving with a broken driver.
I totally regret a lot of things about the gl2k but it was a good learning experience to learn how a lot of different mods effect the tuning. I do actually like them now but it took a lot of effort and experimenting to get them where they are now. Regret everything about super linear amplifiers also. THX, S.M.S.L, Topping, all of them were just so painfully bland I wish I could implant my experiences in them into other people thinking that the more linear the better. To the point where I feel like I’m being pretty reasonable in saying that $100-150 for an amp is the most I’d recommend spending until you’re ready to drop $1000 or more because the difference in most of their cases is usually only unreasonable amounts of power that most people will never once in their life need.
Hifiman headphones…
One broke and another had Q issues, probably was going to break at some point.
Really not much others i can think off.
Everything else has been on purpose and research / listen based purchased.
Not really into the buy / try / return scene. Unless warranty business.
I had a used pair of Hifiman 4xx and the headband was absolute trash. Bonus though; Customer service was so good that I wound up ordering a new headband and a refurb pair of Anandas. Love both now, but yeah that initial QC issue was horrid. Focal Elex was a big miss for me, but thats my fault for buying from Drop refurbished. Learned what mechanical clipping was real quick.
In terms of buying, my most disappointing would probably be the FiiO FH3, I just found it very boring personally, the bass was really temperamental for the music that I would listen to it on them.
In terms of selling, would likely be my E-MU Teak Lawton Purplehearts, not because I miss them loads but more because it was way more difficult to sell them than I expected, ended up having to p/x the cups to get E-MU ones to sell the headphones.
Different libraries. The FH3 has poor timbre in the upper frequencies. It sounds a bit unnatural, but it’s bass performance and speed are great. Remember, all things in alignment of its $130 price tag.
It just really didn’t have as much punch to me as I was expecting from the hype around it on the forum, my main two genres are hip hop and Kpop, whilst it did have more bass presence than my SSR for hip hop, in something like Kpop I found the SSR would win out for me most of the time despite having less resolution etc. I just couldn’t get it to sound the way I wanted it to with the majority of what I listen to which is hip hop.
Regret purchase - Campfire I/O - immediate nope - which is a shame cause there is a banging b-stock set that I love the color of on Headfi right now. : (
Regret purchasing fiio utws3, topping bc3, aiaiai tma-1, gl2k at full retail(would have been content at used price) fiio e9 and e7 from way back.
Kinda regret buying fiio bta30.
I think my biggest selling/ returning regret were my Sony XBA N3AP.
The cable connection broke two times but I could just return the second broken pair and get it fully refunded.
This was all before Chi-fi iems hit the market and now I believe that it wasn’t a fault of the IEM connector but just of the cable the sony came with.
They sounded absolutely lovely and relaxing but now Sony doesn’t sell higher end hifi products like the N3AP or the newer M7 and M9 here anymore.
My Moondrop Kanas Pro came close to the enjoyment of the sonys but they broke internally even tho I treat all my stuff really carefully.
I just hope Sony Hifi products will have a comeback in the future here in Germany.
The biggest waste of my time actually happened twice:
The HD6XX and HD600. I bought and sold both twice. I gave into peer pressure multiple times. “You just need a better amp”. Nope. “You need a tube amp”. Nope. “You need an OTL tube amp.” Nope again. I am just not a fan of those sound signatures. At all!
I do like my HD660’s, but I don’t love them.
Another big miss for me was the NightOwl Carbons. Within a month of buying them I absolutely hated them. Whatever I sold them for, I promise you I would have taken less.
