Ok Here's my worst ever purchase:

Terratec Aureon 7.1 Universe (they have a nickname for this company, Terrortec)

Drivers absolutly suck. The standard drivers that come with the cd and are supossed to be a Stable release, are outdated. I mean Terratec still hasn't made a stable release since the release of the cd drivers from 2004. You can get the new drivers off their site ofcourse, but guess what theyre Vista compatible (yeah right). You open up the mixer, you click and drag that master slider to adjust the volume as you want it and then BAM, the right speaker drops dead, hah. Only way to get around it now is Restart pc, pfff. Ok lets continue. The Front Module which comes with the sound card which you put in the front of your pc case is just about useless. The Inputs and Outputs have so much static I can't even hear myself talking in the mic. And not only that, but the output for the Headphones is INVERTED, so I hear my left channel on my right speaker (WTF Man!!??) Did I forget to mention that u get a fancy midi cable for your midi device, but don't get excited just yet, its 2 inches long!! If you decide to turn on that fancy Sensaura in the mixer, which is meant for games sound fx, you have to restart. You restart, you play a game, sounds nice, but then all of a sudden your stuck at 44.1 khz and you cant do a damn thing about it if you want to change it. Sonar of course won't load up in 96khz no more. Then you have to disable sensaura, restart your pc, but thats not just over yet, you still Can't change the internal clock back to 96 khz, oh no, you have to Reinstall the drivers. There's also a nice bug where if you actually use your mixer a bit too much, like 2 or 3 clicks, the Master's Mute button lights up. Avoid this one guys, I'll never buy Terratec hardware ever again.

ORIGINAL: bitflipper
I have to break ranks with you on this one, though. I like AA2 and use it a lot. I have never had any problems with it.

It never stutters in playback for you? Even in edit view? (I never use its multitrack view. That's what Sonar is for ) And it's just not as snappy on playback as CoolEdit Pro. That was the straw that broke the camel's back for me: Somewhat infrequent stutters in playback. So put that on top of all the other stuff: slow startup, UI wierdness/changes from 1.5, and general sluggishness; I just can't bring myself to use it.

Except when I need a curvy selection in the frequency space editor. Or A-Weighted RMS normalization. Those are some killer features, I'll admit. (but rectangular frequency space selection in 1.5 is sufficient for most of my tasks)

*

Unfortunately, my two worst purchases were the Tascam US122 way back when, and my old Squier Strat. Got rid of both of them!

ORIGINAL: Boogie

ORIGINAL: Infinite5ths

ORIGINAL: Boogie
Delta 1010. Bought it when I took the Core2 back in 1998 or 1999. Long time ago. STILL going strong!

That's odd....I thought Intel released the Core 2 series much later than 1998 or 1999.

...shows what I know.

I was referring to this core2:



Thankfully, it was discontinued in 2001.

I still got a few of those Core2's laying around here somewhere!!!!

Ebay time me thinks!

I got another addition for Worst: Pyro 5, this ^%$#$^ thing refuses to see my CD burner. Traded to Sony CD Architect 5.
Best: Mackie Onyx 1640. I love this thing.
Mike

Absolute Best:

Absolute Worst:

Worst - Has got to be an M-Audio Pro 88 controller. I bought one at Guitar Center and it failed within a week. The keys actually detached from the board! They gave me a new one and the same thing happened again. I got a 3rd one, reluctantly, and one of the modulation wheels made a terrible grinding noise. When they offerred a 4th I declined and got a Yamaha weighted board instead and I couldn't be happier.

Best - A 1985 Fender Strat Plus that still plays flawlesly even after gigging with it for a dozen years. A crappy plastic $35 Ibanez Sound Tank TS5 Tubescreamer that just works magic for my sound. A Line 6 Guitar Port that I bought when they first came out and I never used it. A few years later I dug it out, purchased all the amp and effect upgrades and now it is one of my main recording tools. Cakewalk Home Studio 2002.....initiated me in to the whole world of recording and led to several upgrades and recently Sonar 6.2.

Best Continued - Native Instruments B4 and Elektrik Piano. OMG, these things sound and feel amazing!

Agree with Mikemanm above - really impressed with the sounds on Elektrik Piano and Akoustik Piano....totally blown away with B4 - that thing sounds incredible.

Bests:
Trace Eliot 500 SMX head - sounds great, build like a brick outhouse.
Roland TD6 kit - finally able to play drums :-)
Sonar
Elektrik Piano
Akoustik Piano
B4

Less impressed with:
Garritan Personal Orchestra
The Martin Audio pa we bought which failed consistently for 12 months before it finally got fixed. At one point they even sent the cabs back without drivers in them!
Our drummer - how is it possible to pack a kit down in 5 minutes when he wants to get away quick, but every other time takes the same amount of time to load the van! Ho hum!