Yeah - updated the post to be more clear. I figure I'll go second or third to make things more interesting.

Violectric V200 - Bought this amp to help deal with the HD800's brightness. I found it dull, smeared and closed in. Tried to live with it for 3 months, then sold it. Definitely not a Violectric fan after that.

Grado GS1000 - Heard this at a local Hifi Shop. I don't remember the exact problem with it, but I was done with these in 15 minutes. It was being played through a hi end McIntosh Preamp (forgot the DAC) and probably $10,000 worth of cables, so it didn't have any excuse for sounding as poor as it did.

CENtrance Dacmini - crappy DAC + weaksauce headphone amp = why bother? This was a loaner from Cable Company, so I'm not too mad about it.

Burson Conductor - It was doing good (not great) until the driver installed spyware on my computer. That kind of puts a negative bias on how Burson products sound after that. This was another Cable Company loan.

So I feel good I haven't gotten burned on that many actual purchases so far. I'm having trouble coming up with a 5th, so I'll leave it there.

I thought the DT880 sounded lifeless and boring.

Denon AH-D5000 Markl Modded. LOL the sound signature of a circus tent. And the depressed looking elephant walking around is the bass. The stressed out midget on it's back is the treble. What a precarious situation.

Bel Canto DAC3. EW. Where is the musicality, the inner layering, the detail.

Lavry DA10. What an awkward attempt at neutrality.

Benchmark DAC1. Who is shattering glass while I'm trying to listen to these speakers.

Worst piece of gear factoring in price/reputation was this:



Albert von Schweikert’s $140k seven-driver, ribbon/cone hybrid VR100 XS, paired with two of Albert’s Shockwave subwoofers and bi-amped by Kronzilla tubes on top and Channel Islands Class D on the subs TAS considered them best in show contenders.  They punctured my eardrums at like 70dB



Worst component I've ever owned in my system was a Devialet 120.  Flat when omitting, shrill beyond anything I've heard.  (especially when paired with ceramic drivers.)  Imagine all the GS-X's perceived flaws magnified 5x.




Original meridian explorer suffered from the opposite kind of issue.  Mushy sound, wooly bass, it was like listening to music submerged in a vat of jello.



Most disappointing headphone/amp combo was a pair of HE60's I bought from Spritzer that he did some kind of dustcover mod and retermination on.  I'm not incriminating the headphone itself as it was probably the mods that rendered the highs piercing and shrill and the rest of the sound very anemic, save for the dynamic-like punch.  Sold both headphones and amp to blue, even though he knew what I thought of them.  He sold them both too.


Ultrasone Pro 900. It was a while back and its almost beating a dead horse at this point, but man were these bad.  No cyclical love/hate cycle can change this headphone from feeling like an anechoic chamber that slowly sucks your ability to hear into the walls while you listen to alternately dead and shrill EDM as that's the only kind of music anyone has ever claimed these can sound passable with.