Vote

Dual Disc. Dumb.

95% of the music in stores have the same selection, no matter where you go. Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Circuit City all have Shakira and Bo plastered all over the place. I did find some clean LPs at a record store in Albuquerque but, they were fill in's for our collection. Refer to Wes's column and what you find in your mass market CD rack and that is why the music selection is the worst audio product of the year. I have been pursuing my photography more as a result.

The Nano gets my vote. It's sad that people don't have the time, patience or attention skills to sit down and listen to music anymore.

Most likely something from Bose...

All of the latest iPod variants. There: something which appears in both the "top" and "bottom" lists.

Sony spyware CDs. Nothing could have been worse. Products like that are one of the reasons I continue to by vinyl.

Brose NIH-9909 Noise Increasing Headphones.

The DRM software from SONY/BMG installed when users played their CDs on a computer, which left those computers vulnerable to attack by hackers. The removal tool they supplied was just as bad. That is a bad product.

B&W802D

DualDisc.

The hardware is fine. The DVDs are fine. But, what happened to the music?

Vacuum cables.

Sony's CDs with rootkit DRM.

All of the drivel & drek (purported to be be music) put in the market place by the various record companies.

iPod this and iPod that...if it says iPod, then it is the cancer of all things audiophile and high end. Kiss this hobby goodbye thanks to the iPod.

Did not buy anything new in 05

$400+ wooden knob from Silver Rock (?)

The slew of stupid effing iPod accessories! I mean come on! I like my iPod and all but most of these damned things exist only to cash in on the craze! And worst of all, most of them are cheap P'sOS. The best iPod accessory you can buy is a quality pair of cans. Period!

Any of the supposed "hi-fi' iPod products. You know, the ones that sit on your desk with goofy looking speakers for ears and you plug the iPod into it instead of a decent audio system.

DualDisc. Won't play on many machines and will never replace SACD.

The Video iPod: low-rez video and low-rez audio on a tiny low-rez screen. Popular with the low self-esteem trendies, but unfortunately a limbo quality direction.

Any of those single box home theater speakers, or the slim speakers designed to be used with on-wall plasma and LCD televisions. I believe these two categories of products produce a very poor sound for a remarkably high price. Definitely set sound quality back a notch or two.

All iPods.

All new-improved-best-ever-miracle cables.

Absolute corruption of audiophile values.

Any of the overpriced speaker wires or interconnecting cables introduced in 2005. People continue to throw money away on these products in spite of evidence they do no good.

It would have to be the Sony/BMG rootkit software that was surreptitiously installed upon playing their discs in a computer. Who expects a music CD to break their computer? I am glad I primarily listen through an old fashioned dedicated CD player.

Sony CDs.

Anything DualDisc, which can only play on one of my four machines.

Dualdisc and Sony's nightmarish DRM schemes. Can you say spyware?