What is worst amp you have had that worked

[Silent Screamer]

Jaycar sub amp... I am going to blame it because it wasn't my fine sub building skills that sucked.

[Tweaky]

I didn't own this particular unit, but I was given it , and quickly gave away, a 70's JVC JR-S series receiver of around 60w output.

 

They could have used this unit as a implement of torture at Guantanamo bay.

 

It's high frequency output equals that of a stream of Bats leaving a cave for a nightly feed, or a poorly shielded microwave oven.....I'm sure this would be achievable with a speaker without a tweeter using this amp, it really is that bad.

 

Absolutely Horrible.....it was running a pair of very low range Sonab Ommni directional speakers....Match made in heaven?

[kffern]

Rotel RB1080. Fortunately I bought it cheap though. Looked nice but it sounded horrible.

Dry and non musical. Should have stripped it and fitted a kit amp.

Kffern

[Grumpy]

3 hours ago, kffern said:

Rotel RB1080. Fortunately I bought it cheap though. Looked nice but it sounded horrible.

Dry and non musical. Should have stripped it and fitted a kit amp.

Kffern

WHAT  !!!!!!!!!!

l am aware that Rotel gets knocked a bit on forums - the 1070 for example that l had is so different to and not as good as the 1080 which for the price and with my gear sounds just right , to me  - so what did you replace it with ?

[Tasebass]

Are we talking worst or bad sounding here....

The worst amp i have had is an old JVC quad amp.....not bad sounding though just needs a service etc IMO....

TBH I've never had a bad sounding amp cause i make sure they are fed with a good front end....especially the vintage Rotel ones I have.

 

Tase.

[Tasebass]

On 09/10/2018 at 2:32 PM, andyr said:

 

Agreed!    But are the modern Naim amps any different? 

 

Andy

 

Way different Andy..

Better......

[Gordon Macfarlane]

30 minutes ago, Grumpy said:

WHAT  !!!!!!!!!!

l am aware that Rotel gets knocked a bit on forums - the 1070 for example that l had is so different to and not as good as the 1080 which for the price and with my gear sounds just right , to me  - so what did you replace it with ?

I used a 1080 for about 5 yrs and while it wasn't the most neutral amp I didn't find it overly dry or unmusical. I now use a Rotel (Michi) RHB10 and find it transparent to whatever I feed it with. In the end it comes down to system matching and of course room acoustics.

[Grumpy]

1 hour ago, Ozcall said:

I used a 1080 for about 5 yrs and while it wasn't the most neutral amp I didn't find it overly dry or unmusical. I now use a Rotel (Michi) RHB10 and find it transparent to whatever I feed it with. In the end it comes down to system matching and of course room acoustics.

The fella i bought the Rotel from upgraded to a very nice Luxman , i dare say that he too would class the 1080 the worst sounding of the two and  with the Luxman at about 8 times (?) what i paid for the Rotel l fully get it.

[kffern]

2 hours ago, Grumpy said:

WHAT  !!!!!!!!!!

l am aware that Rotel gets knocked a bit on forums - the 1070 for example that l had is so different to and not as good as the 1080 which for the price and with my gear sounds just right , to me  - so what did you replace it with ?

I used it with a tannoy LGM, DIY full range FR125, Mission 752. Eventually assigned it to stereo subs. Replaced with a icepower 700.

I didn't dare try it with either of my electrostats.

Didn't mean to insult but it really didn't do anything for me.

My main amp was a Bryston 4BST at the time which now works really well with the Tannoys.

Regards,

kffern

[Grumpy]

1 minute ago, kffern said:

I used it with a tannoy LGM, DIY full range FR125, Mission 752. Eventually assigned it to stereo subs. Replaced with a icepower 700.

I didn't dare try it with either of my electrostats.

Didn't mean to insult but it really didn't do anything for me.

My main amp was a Bryston 4BST at the time which now works really well with the Tannoys.

Regards,

kffern

Fair enough.

[Silent Screamer]

On 12/10/2018 at 2:35 PM, Grumpy said:

The fella i bought the Rotel from upgraded to a very nice Luxman , i dare say that he too would class the 1080 the worst sounding of the two and  with the Luxman at about 8 times (?) what i paid for the Rotel l fully get it.

The funny thing is I prefer the sound of the Rotel RB-1091 and RB-1092 I have in boxes over the Luxman, I have auditioned them twice and have yet to be impressed by the Luxman. And while the Rotels have faded from my top amp list, I can't bring myself to part with them. 

[emesbee]

My very first amp was a Rotel RA-413, which I bought in 1979. It might be a bit unfair to describe it as my worst amp, but I guess it was. Add a pair of Challenge JT-330 speakers and a Rotel RP-2300 turntable, and this was my very first system. Its fair to say that I was very happy with this system at the time, and got a lot of enjoyment listening to this system for a good number of years. I think I was rather blissfully unaware of the limitations of this combination though, something which only became obvious to me later on.

 

The limitations of the RA-413 became very obvious to me when I bought my first pair of VAF DC-Xs in 1999. This was when VAF were selling kit speakers, and I had just put mine together, so I hooked them up to the Rotel amp, and they sounded dreadful! The RA-413 was fairly low powered at 35W RMS per channel, but that probably wasn't such a big deal. Sure, the speakers were new, so needed some time to burn in, but the sound was just incredibly shrill and hard sounding. Things did settle down a bit after a while, but the shrillness was still there. So I set about hunting for a new amp, and settled for a Musical Fidelity E11. The difference between the RA-413 compared with the E11 driving the DC-Xs was like chalk and cheese.

 

I think perhaps the limitations of the JT-330s might have masked the limitations of the RA-413! I no longer have the RA-413 (gave it to a friend). I still have the JT-330s though. Though not great speakers by current standards (something that becomes quite obvious to me on the odd occasion when I do listen to them), I am still rather attached to them. Posterity I guess. I have taken these speakers around to my friend's place a few times, hooked them up to the RA-413, and they actually sound quite good for parties! The Rotel drives them loud, lots of bass (a bit boomy perhaps), but that doesn't matter so much for parties. Not really satisfying for high fidelity listening though.

 

 

 

 

[THOMO]

ME 550.

As 2D as I have heard any amp sound.There was a technical reason for that which was rectified in later versions .It was a product of the "Flat Earth"'era when imaging was not supposed to exist [Naim started that idiocy].

[keinesorge]

A TDA7297 with a less than ideal potentiometer.

[Cafad]

Something of a tie between a Cyrus 6 (harsh, hard and massively fatiguing) and an Onkyo 9070 (dull, thick and murky).   Couldn't live with either of them.

[thimmy118]

Mine was a Musical Fidelity A100 that I bought in Singapore and lugged all the way back here. It was flat, under powered and was not able to even tickle my Spendor SP2. Needless to say, it was traded in to an NVA after three months. It ran rings around the MF back in the day. Not sure if this is still the case nowadays.

[Art Vandelay]

On 06/10/2018 at 6:28 PM, Wimbo said:

IMO all the Japanese amps of the late 70s/early 80's that used heaps of negative feedback to get low THD paper specs. Slow and thin.

 

Sounds like my first amp, a Yamaha A500. My second amp was a 100W Luxman integrated with 'duo beta' circuitry, which was probably nothing more than a ceramic capacitor to provide dominant pole compensation. It sounded better, but only slightly. 

Purchased from Len Wallis Audio of course. 

 

 

 

 

[Wimbo]

3 hours ago, Art Vandelay said:

 

Sounds like my first amp, a Yamaha A500. My second amp was a 100W Luxman integrated with 'duo beta' circuitry, which was probably nothing more than a ceramic capacitor to provide dominant pole compensation. It sounded better, but only slightly. 

Purchased from Len Wallis Audio of course. 

 

 

 

 

Not Semicon? Poor Rolf.

[dasherhalo]

NAD 2140 2ch power amp.

I was in love with the other NAD gear I had at the time and was buying anything that came across ebay. 218THX, 2200, AMC spin-offs, etc.

Then I picked up this block of cheese. The most horrible, dull, lifeless power amp I've ever heard. It's only value in life was to make me appreciate the other amps.

What's worse is I tracked down a second one before I made this discovery, so had two of the useless bricks.

Made for quite the NAD stack, actually. Even bridging them couldn't get them to perk up. Even centre and rear channel duties for HT was unsuccessful

Sold them with a warning for a pittance.

[Ooogh]

Audio Innovations Alto. 30 Watts of pure displeasure.

 

The very first Absolute High End HiFi show. 1994? Rooms full of exotic gear, plenty of AudioNote. Still some rooms with nothing in them. What have we got left? This little flying saucer amp, the cheapest of cheap  Denon CD player and some god awful tiny speakers that require an arc welder to sound slightly better than horrendous. Lucky me! 

 

It sounded sooooo bad. I was supposed to try and sell this crap! Decided to leave it as a static display and go on a two day bender with Audio idiots instead. Excellent!

[Anthony1]

NAD 2140 2ch power amp.

I was in love with the other NAD gear I had at the time and was buying anything that came across ebay. 218THX, 2200, AMC spin-offs, etc.

Then I picked up this block of cheese. The most horrible, dull, lifeless power amp I've ever heard. It's only value in life was to make me appreciate the other amps.
Snips.

Might have been something wrong with your eBay special then,
as the new NAD 2140 power amp was for the era a vg unit for the money, and had no sound faults.
I bought a 2nd unit and bridged them and they were great.

I demo’d a Carver 1,000 W solid state amp vs the bridged NAD’s and stuck with the NAD’s.
When I moved up to Perreaux the NAD’s sold instantly, so I have fond memories of this era.

[dasherhalo]

2 amps? Same issue? Probably not [emoji846]

Particularly as they were a/b'd against other NAD amps.

Glad you liked your though.

[Wimbo]

2 hours ago, Anthony1 said:

 

Might have been something wrong with your eBay special then,
as the new NAD 2140 power amp was for the era a vg unit for the money, and had no sound faults.
I bought a 2nd unit and bridged them and they were great.

I demo’d a Carver 1,000 W solid state amp vs the bridged NAD’s and stuck with the NAD’s.
When I moved up to Perreaux the NAD’s sold instantly, so I have fond memories of this era.

 

I always preferred the sound of the 3240 to the 3140.

[eman]

I almost made a positive post about bridging NAD power amps and a long term owner of two 3240s, but it's a 'negatives ' thread so I won't. 

[muzzagruzz]

The Luxman L-507uX was my poor choice in amplifiers. Gorgeous to look at and exemplary build quality but the SQ was nothing worth mentioning. Worse still, the inbuilt MC card was appalling and so overrated - flat, uninspiring sound with too little gain. 

 

My ME MC card, on the other hand, is other worldly.