Brands you dislike-The hi-fi hate thread

shafesk

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Following Plastic Penguin's thread, lets start ranting about the brands we really dislike. Not for arguing with one another, just stating what and why you don't like any particular brand.

For me it'll be Klipsch to start off with (ear piercing treble, for me consistently through everything they make),

Beats by Dre ( they claim its music the way its meant to be heard....really??????) Horrible sounding things, way too bassy (its not even the good kinda bass for most of their line).....it also annoys me when I see people advertising them as necklaces on the tube.

Bose-I think its criminal for someone to charge 300 quid for a radio. The quality of materials they use for the price is shocking, my brother had a 302 and its vinyl coating peeled of after 3 months...only to reveal the kind of mdf I wouldn't use for my toilet cabinet. Sadly, they still sell millions of units a year to customers who don't know any better. You got me once, you ain't getting me twice Bose!

Thats just to get the ball rolling, will post more when I remember.
 

Trefor Patten

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+1 for Bose never could understand why they had such a following, loved their concert PA, but the domestic stuff - overpriced and at best mediocre. But rather than slag off a few brands ( there are so many!) I would like to condemn all the AV electronics which are build like model factories. Sure, we can't all be Bang and Olufsen but does so much stuff have to be built like a big silver, or even worse, black, brick? |(
 

fr0g

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I don't hate any brands.

I have a strong dislike for apparent poor value for money and/or style over substance in varying degrees...

Apple, Naim, B&O, Olive stand out off the top of my head.
 

DandyCobalt

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shafesk said:
Bose-I think its criminal for someone to charge 300 quid for a radio. The quality of materials they use for the price is shocking, my brother had a 302 and its vinyl coating peeled of after 3 months...only to reveal the kind of mdf I wouldn't use for my toilet cabinet. Sadly, they still sell millions of units a year to customers who don't know any better. You got me once, you ain't getting me twice Bose!

I can understand about the expensive radio (I got a Creative Audio alternative that cost much less, looked similar but better, and sounded better too) but the Bose SoundDock has been one of the most used and valued things I've ever bought !

Also, their noise-cancelling headphones are world-beating kit.

So perhaps we should be talking about specifics here to avoid tarring all products by a brand with the same brush?
 

shafesk

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DandyCobalt said:
shafesk said:
So perhaps we should be talking about specifics here to avoid tarring all products by a brand with the same brush?
Thats a good idea, well I felt the poor vfm products that I've heard from them are the Bose around ears, Bose Wave Radio, Bose acoustimass series. I will admit the noise cancelling headphones

sound pretty sweet, but they cost a fair bit of dosh and I personally think that the competing Sennheiser ki are better sounding but thats a personal thing. I can't complain about the build quality of the headphones they are very good indeed. But I can complain about the build quality of all of the others I mentioned here, have been gifted or know someone who own all of the above, so I'm speaking from personal experience.
 

shafesk

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fr0g said:
I don't hate any brands.

I have a strong dislike for apparent poor value for money and/or style over substance in varying degrees...

Apple, Naim, B&O, Olive stand out off the top of my head.

Oh boy, I keep on saying I'm not an Apple fanboy but at this rate no one will believe me anymore :wall: . I'll just talk about the macbook pro and the ipad 3 since they are the ones I own. I think that these products are really competitive because 1) The screen resolution and quality 2) Battery Life 3) Construction quality. Before buying my macbook, I searched high and low for something equally built and had the same screen quality. Indeed, there was none I could find at the same price. An alimunium bodied laptop with a similar type of screen and the same specs were atleast 150 pounds deaerer. Same with the ipad 3, I don't really think theres a direct competitor to it tbh as its currently the only OS which has the most tablet friendly apps. I love android to bits, but the quality of tablet friendly apps left me wanting. Think android is better suited to phones (like my lovely htc legend or samsung galaxy s for eg), I really don't like to fiddle when I'm kicking back with a tablet.

I don't know about Naim cause I don't actually own one, but their products seem to get good to great reviews on a vfm basis so its hard to say whether they charge a premium.

Then again these are just my opinions.
 
shafesk said:
Following Plastic Penguin's thread, lets start ranting about the brands we really dislike. Not for arguing with one another, just stating what and why you don't like any particular brand.

For me it'll be Klipsch to start off with (ear piercing treble, for me consistently through everything they make),

Beats by Dre ( they claim its music the way its meant to be heard....really??????) Horrible sounding things, way too bassy (its not even the good kinda bass for most of their line).....it also annoys me when I see people advertising them as necklaces on the tube.

Bose-I think its criminal for someone to charge 300 quid for a radio. The quality of materials they use for the price is shocking, my brother had a 302 and its vinyl coating peeled of after 3 months...only to reveal the kind of mdf I wouldn't use for my toilet cabinet. Sadly, they still sell millions of units a year to customers who don't know any better. You got me once, you ain't getting me twice Bose!

Thats just to get the ball rolling, will post more when I remember.

I think the phrase "hi-fi hate thread" is far too strong. I can't say I hate a particular brand. There are many brands I wouldn't spend my own money on, but still have a healthy respect for ALL makes. Every manufactuer offers something unique to them. That's what makes this hobby/interest so special... and why I specifically worded my thread in that way.
 
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I don't "hate" any brands, though I'd never buy a product made by (or sold by, they don't always make them) certain companies, like Naim for example. The reasons being that they are IMO, far too expensive for what they offer, and, their "upgrade path" is IMO, purely designed to relieve their own customers of as much money as possible, especially their upgraded power supplys, that I don't believe make one bit of difference, yet can cost many thousands of pounds.

I'd never buy from any of the expensive HDMI cable sellers either, QED, Chord, etc, for similar reasons as above, or Russ Andrews. I don't rate Monitor Audio too highly either though to be fair, their speakers are very well made and not too expensive for the most part.
 

dalwen

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brands I dislike

Bose: poor value for money / overpriced. i owned Acoustimass 5 and later on a Bose 321 system. That was before I discovered WHF! :wall:

Apple: same as Bose, expensive, high appeal, users have mostly emotional and esthetical reasons to continuasly buy and upgrade! If the purchase is based on functional specs then there are always better vfm alternatives.
 

Big Aura

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Apple - although they're wonderfully user-friendly (and pricing aside), the degree of control they retain over every aspect of their business is draconian. I'd like to be able to change a battery, or slot in an extra memory card. It's funny how they painted Microsoft as the bad guy, turns out it was the other way around.
 

Paul.

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I can't speak highly enough of the Bose OE2i. This thread is all a bit negative. This whole forum has been a bit us verses them recently, wheres the love?

That being said, Adobe are really on my s**t list at the moment. I've always had a love hate relationship with Adobe, now its just a hate hate relationship.
 

fr0g

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Paul Hobbs said:
I can't speak highly enough of the Bose OE2i. This thread is all a bit negative. This whole forum has been a bit us verses them recently, wheres the love?

That being said, Adobe are really on my s**t list at the moment. I've always had a love hate relationship with Adobe, now its just a hate hate relationship.

Agree with Adobe. I bought CS4 Photoshop as it's the standard. But it's 1. Overpriced and 2. Annoyingly differently priced depending where you live...

ie. CS6 Photoshop...from the US store is $699

CS6 Photoshop from the UK store is £667 ($1039)

And here in Sweden it's 9275 SEK ($1285)

Now of course there is different VAT to pay, but seeing as ours is 25%, Adobe are talking the p.

I'll not be upgrading. I may however be doing some courses soon so I may be eligible for the student version.
 

bluedroog

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I think Bose and Beats go without saying really.

Apple divides opinion and I’m divide myself. I have the phone which I’m very happy with and I think their products are generally good. What I don’t like about them is the way they take existing technology, call it something else and almost seem to claim it as their own revolutionary breakthrough. The brand also grates on me a bit, but to be fair so does most of those Californian based technology companies, the ‘wackiness’ of their offices, the foosball tables and craziness in the office, the forced fun of it all. What is even worse was when Microsoft thought they needed to copy them. It was almost as if an office memo went out ‘lose the ties and act like you’re having a great time In the play area of the corner of the office’. It’s like watching the Miliband brothers high fiving at the Labour conference a few years back. Grrrr. Slight side tracked rant there.

Can’t say I really hate many brands but Naim and their upgrades seem a bit silly, particularly as their value for money and overall quality seems to have dived over recent years. It wouldn’t stop me buying from them if it was right for me though.
 

Inter_Voice

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For me there is no brands I like or dislike and it is only a matter of preference.

"Like" or "dislike" is very subjective. I don't think we can draw any conclusion here.
 

Paul.

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fr0g said:
Paul Hobbs said:
I can't speak highly enough of the Bose OE2i. This thread is all a bit negative. This whole forum has been a bit us verses them recently, wheres the love?

That being said, Adobe are really on my s**t list at the moment. I've always had a love hate relationship with Adobe, now its just a hate hate relationship.

Agree with Adobe. I bought CS4 Photoshop as it's the standard. But it's 1. Overpriced and 2. Annoyingly differently priced depending where you live...

ie. CS6 Photoshop...from the US store is $699

CS6 Photoshop from the UK store is £667 ($1039)

And here in Sweden it's 9275 SEK ($1285)

Now of course there is different VAT to pay, but seeing as ours is 25%, Adobe are talking the p.

I'll not be upgrading. I may however be doing some courses soon so I may be eligible for the student version.

I bought CS3 Extended from the US for $570 about three years ago (from Amazon, my parents were in the US on holiday so I had it posted to their hotel). Just sold it on eBay for £130, went to transfer the license and Adobe refused, claiming it was a student license. Says no where on the box, no where on the disc, no where during install and no where on the splash screen or about screen that is is a student version. I had no way of knowing. Adobe say they wouldn't offer any help unless I had bought it from them direct. They enable fraud by being too cheap to print different boxes or discs. They claim its my fault even though there is no way to find out its a student license. I registered it under my buisness name, I even told them on the phone a couple of years ago that I was using it for buisness use and they said nothing. I had to refund the eBay transaction and am trying to figure out how to get Amazon to refund me, but this far out I am having no luck.
 

Inter_Voice

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I have been using Photoshop 7.01 for quite a number of years since the era of Windows XP without updrading it to newer versions. Ver.7.01 works well in the latest Windows OS that I am using now ;)
 

fr0g

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Paul Hobbs said:
fr0g said:
Paul Hobbs said:
I can't speak highly enough of the Bose OE2i. This thread is all a bit negative. This whole forum has been a bit us verses them recently, wheres the love?

That being said, Adobe are really on my s**t list at the moment. I've always had a love hate relationship with Adobe, now its just a hate hate relationship.

Agree with Adobe. I bought CS4 Photoshop as it's the standard. But it's 1. Overpriced and 2. Annoyingly differently priced depending where you live...

ie. CS6 Photoshop...from the US store is $699

CS6 Photoshop from the UK store is £667 ($1039)

And here in Sweden it's 9275 SEK ($1285)

Now of course there is different VAT to pay, but seeing as ours is 25%, Adobe are talking the p.

I'll not be upgrading. I may however be doing some courses soon so I may be eligible for the student version.

I bought CS3 Extended from the US for $570 about three years ago (from Amazon, my parents were in the US on holiday so I had it posted to their hotel). Just sold it on eBay for £130, went to transfer the license and Adobe refused, claiming it was a student license. Says no where on the box, no where on the disc, no where during install and no where on the splash screen or about screen that is is a student version. I had no way of knowing. Adobe say they wouldn't offer any help unless I had bought it from them direct. They enable fraud by being too cheap to print different boxes or discs. They claim its my fault even though there is no way to find out its a student license. I registered it under my buisness name, I even told them on the phone a couple of years ago that I was using it for buisness use and they said nothing. I had to refund the eBay transaction and am trying to figure out how to get Amazon to refund me, but this far out I am having no luck.

$570 3 yrs ago, even for extended doesn't sound like student price. In fact it definitely isn't CS& extended is only $249 for students.

Was it through Amazon, or marketplace?

You perhaps need to phone Adobe in the US as support doesn't cover foreign versions.
 

shafesk

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Lol....well most people on this thread have started saying that they don't hate any brand and yet went on to say something about a particular product/brand. The aim is not to bad mouth any brand but mention some products you think have terrible vfm. We all have had our share of disappointments....let it all out :rant:
 

shafesk

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Also, I know I said brands you dislike when I should've actually said products....my bad, well to be fair English is my 4th language :oops:
 

eggontoast

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These are the ones that immediately spring to mind for me.

Monster - All of their products are just marketing hype with no substance.

Bose - Never seen the appeal myself, their products are mediocre at best with premium price tags.

Cyrus - Just sound god awful to me.

Apple - Mixed feelings really. I have an iPhone which is OK, but there closed in only compatible with apple services annoys me, I also think there products are vastly overpriced.

Naim - overpriced, under specified, under performing.

Chord - Gimmicky rubbish

Russ Andrews - pointless products

Fidelity Audio - overpriced tosh

That's it for now.
 

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