Are there any brands... (1 Viewer)

....that have a reputation for not being very good (or overpriced for the value)? I'm wondering because I'm going in to demo some home theater equipment today and I would like to know if there are any brands (or even models of brands) that really need to be left alone. Thanks.

A good many very good brands for certain items are not particularly good values in other areas. Sony for example would not make my short list of speakers, though I would always consider their displays.

Some other brands provide good value within certain price ranges, but not so good in other ranges. I’ve not personally listened to the dramatic looking, high end JBL speakers, but I would be very doubtful if they were to provide as good a value as most other brands in that price range. On the other hand their S series and N series are very fine values in their price ranges.

Many people think that Bose does not provide particularly good value.

But in the end, most well-known brands are well-known because they make reasonably good products at a fair price point.

Bose

Digital Audio
Dogg Digital
Acoustic
Audiofile
Denmark
Ephipany
Paradyme
Techwood

Are some of the better-known "Garbage brands" that you should under no circumstances purchase. They are usually only sold out-of the back of vans (commonly white or yellow). There are other brands too, do a search in the speaker/subwoofer section of this forum for "White van speakers". The bad part is that many of these speakers sound just like name-brand speakers (Paradyme & Paradigm) and may even have fancy websites and be packaged in professional looking boxes.

Generally you stick to the Japanese brands for the electronics and the American / English / Canadian /etc companies for Speakers. As the cheap labor can easily assemble receivers and dvd players, but the speakers are a different matter.

Kelly - there are hundreds of different brands. It's much easier if you tell us what brands of speakers & receivers you auditioned and then ask about the reputations of the ones you liked.

Some advice (although it may be a bit late):

- Take a favorite CD and DVD to the auditon

- Take notes about what pleased you (other than the price)

- Buy NOTHING on your first audition. Plan to come back in a few days/week and re-audition the same equipment. You may be suprised at the different impressions on your second trip.

- Give serious consideration to speakers that please you over 2 auditions.

- If you are having trouble deciding between 2 speakers, use the CD music as a tie-breaker. CD's will show you things about a speaker that a DVD movie will not.