Best amps: AHB2 and Dyna MkIV. The former because it's now almost an 'old' design, but no one has really bested it with newer tech; the latter because there aren't many 60 year old designs you can count on, fix yourself, and still buy all the necessary parts and upgrades you could ever want.
Worst amps: Sony TAN-77ES and Amber Series 70. The former because although the amp part of the package was OK, its meter lamps kept blowing up. You buy an amp like that to watch the meters bounce around, so if you can't see them, what's the point of paying extra? Both the Sony and Amber were in the shop two times each (the Amber didn't have meters, but just kept blowing up). Boutique Amber actually turned around the amp quicker than the Sony service station. The last time each was fixed I sold them while they were 'factory fresh'. Amber soon went out of business, and dealing with Sony was as if they might as well have been out of business. Out of the tens of thousands of Sony employees, I couldn't find one to talk to about the problem.
Best Turntable: Techincs SL-1100a (1975) and SL-1200 Mk5 (2008). Former still runs like new, and the latter is even better.
Worst Turntable: Transcriptors Skeleton. Motor stopped after about a year and the company had gone out of business. No Internet then, so you couldn't get ready parts. Looked pretty cool. So it had that going for it.
Best loudspeaker: JBL L100/4311. Wonderful for what it does.
Worst loudspeaker: JBL L100/4311. Horrible for what it does.
Best little add on: Magni headphone amp from the full of Schiit guys. Dirt cheap, small, works well with what I own.
Worst little add on: dbx crossover. Broken out of the box. Dealing with Harman for a return was a very frustrating experience. As bad as dealing with Sony, years earlier. I learned never to buy direct from any big company, when you can drive to your local guitar store and deal with a human, for the same price.
Worst overall component class: Anything open reel. The 'cheap' stuff never lasted, and the expensive stuff was too expensive to keep going, from a home user's standpoint.
Best component class: Almost anything guitar related. When you can get something like a Boss Kantana 100 MkII for less than four hundred dollars, and a 'name brand' Indonesian guitar for give away dollars, it makes you wonder why anyone would pay top dollar for home audio gear.
