Hi-Fi Mishaps and Loudspeaker Paranoia

That was one sad day. Luckily I was somewhat merry at the time, having just returned from a meal. Otherwise I might have cried. As it was I was like, "Ah, bugger. At least there's the insurance".

One great thing to come out of it is that it got me listening to some different turntables and amps (insurance settlement was just a tad under £4000, as was the full retail of an LP12/Aro/Armageddon and £500ish for the cartridge), plus the cost of replacing the phono stage and headamp also, which were damaged too.)

I'm now happy that things happened as they did, but had my TT not died, I'd still have been delighted with my LP12. Keep that insurance paid up, folks...

TC '..'
"Girl, you thought he was a man, but he was a Muffin..."

We have some round placemats. My eldest daughter when 3 years old decided they looked just like those things daddy uses to play music. So she promptly tried to put one on my LP12 when I was loading the car up to go on holiday. The cartridge was instantly wiped out by the placemat.

I was gutted.

To make things worse when we got to our destination later that day my wife dropped my Nikon complete with 24mm lens. They are not cheap items either.

A day forever known as black Monday, to match my mood. Than god for a paid up insurance policy!

Milan

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Originally posted by Milan:
Nikon complete with 24mm lens. They are not cheap items either.

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My 24mm F2 (Pentax) fell out of my camera bag from waist height onto a section of marble paving in Singapore. A real "oh feck" moment. It survived ok apart from denting the filter ring - I never use filters anyway thankfully.

My hi-fi disasters have been limited to the kids blowing up the occasional Arcam amp. It looks like my Audio Note has done a valve as well but other than that I haven't (touch wood) had much in the way of problems so far.

Regards
Steve

Back in the dim, distant past I had an Audiolab 8000A. Looking to move into the big boys world of pre/power I set about demoing a 8000C/P combo. The only place I could find to do the demo was about 70 miles away and they didn't have my Epos ES14 speakers. So I packed mine up and headed off.

After demoing the Audiolab combo, the dealer suggested these funny looking small boxes - a 42.5 and a 140. He plugged them in and I was hooked. So hooked in fact that we spent a couple of hours going through tons of vinyl cranked up loud.

Unfortunately the demo had to end due to the tweeter on one of my Epos's going bang. Much red face and apologies from the dealer.

The upside was that he ran them round to Epos the next day, and two days later Robin Marshall drove over to where I lived with revamped and modded 14's and helped set them up. Excellent service.

The downside was that I've spent a small fortune growing my collection of funny looking black boxes ever since!

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Firstly, does anyone suffer from the same paranoia as me, in that you start a piece of unfamiliar music, you have the volume at 11 o'clock on the dial when it should really be at 9 o'clock. You then spend the next hour or so listening out for loudspeaker damage, convinced that bass output from the left channel may have been reduced by a couple of dBs.

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I was going to tell you that I'd gotten over this after buying strong equipment in black and green boxes, and suggest that your paranoia stems from use of weak equipment in midi-size boxes from over the border. But then I'd be lying... I used to have that paranoia, but was cured of it some years back after a few beers, and a friend visiting decided we should give Firestarter a serious thrash on the 72/Hi/250 ES11's. They fared fine, and if there was any damage, I was too deaf to hear it anyway! On a more serious note, what does your analyst say about this paranoia, anyway?

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Several days later you then realise there was nothing wrong with the drivers anyway and it may have been all in your imagination (and the mix may have been right-centric anyway).

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I'm N-N-n-n-nno psychologist, but isn't that just rash-rash-rationalisation?



Rico - SM/Mullet Audio

So what's 11 o'clock amount to on a Kolektor?
"vol 84" ?

11 o'clock on a 102, 82, or 52 would be the equivalent of 80-something on the Kolektor, 2 o'clock on a Nait 5/112, or half past 12 on my Densen B200.

I think you need to add two hours or so for a vinyl source.

Regards,

Steve.

The proof of the pudding...

yes I know the feeling. You feel the urge after some real or imagined mishap to have your gear given a thorough physical to ensure nothings wrong with it. Incidently I was adjusting the speaker position when I think the + and - naca touched. I had a cd playing quietly at the time and it went silent briefly. This caused me great angst as I read somewhere here that this might cause a channel to blow. It didnt but Ive been wondering.....

Ian
nait3/planet2000/doublets.

Steven said:

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I think you need to add two hours or so for a vinyl source.

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I'm always doing that with my LP12

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I was going to tell you that I'd gotten over this after buying strong equipment in black and green boxes, and suggest that your paranoia stems from use of weak equipment in midi-size boxes from over the border.

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Nah! I had it too with those assorted green boxes from Jethro-country , probably more-so as I was using smaller Kans. Big speakers, now that's what I need to get over it - where did I stash that £26,000?

Andrew

Andrew Randle
Currently in the "Linn Binn"

I had the self same thing last night. Have just picked up a point in time record some drum and bass stuff.

Played the first track and the treble distortions was scary, really bad I though Feck there goes my new cartridge already.

A little check through other vinyl confirmed a dodgy pressing, ah well.

Omer,

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My wife Shelly is a Psychotherapist.

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May I just point out that your wife is a very attractive psychotherapist, you lucky devil.

Thomas

Read the Wrong Boy to understand

Several years ago I arrived too late and saw that my 3 year old had managed to wipe the cantilever clean off a re-built Asak. She was not tall enough to lift the arm and pushed it against the platter the cantilever took full load!

The arm bearing survived.

The only other disaster was the speaker grills being punctured with a toy.

From my experience children and hi fi don't mix well, luckily mine are older and wiser now and leave the system alone.

Joe

On the same theme, both my daughters as todlers enjoyed posting toys, books, sweet wrappers and anything lying around into the video tape slot.
I became quite accomplished at taking it apart and removing the post before buying a Mothercare video shield.
JoeH

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before buying a Mothercare video shield

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Does that go around the video or around the toddler?

Andrew

Andrew Randle
Currently in the "Linn Binn"

I've had fingers stuck into speaker drivers, thankfully cheapo mission speakers so wasn't to fussed.

Insurance that covers accidental damage starts to make sense!

Matthew

JC,

Really? For sure a Stanton or Ortofon you'd find on a Technics 1210 would be fine under these circumstances (DJs often do tricks like the one you described). Hmmm I wonder what it is in the design of the Klyde that would give this weakness?

I do remember some New York DJ uses fully loaded LP12s to do his mixing with. Maybe the boron cantilever on an Archiv can take a DJ session.

Andrew

Andrew Randle
Currently in the "Linn Binn"

One of my cats is very much an outdoor animal, coming inside only to have a snack or show the household his latest kill. He regards being compelled to stay in as a grevious affront to his autonomy, and on the rare occasion that it happens what follows is lots of growling, banging on windows, scratched this-and-that, etc.

A few years back I locked him in for about 20 minutes while I sprayed some dread chemical on the flowers. I returned to find him standing in the middle of a pile of black foam that had once been the front grill of a Linn Isobarik. I let him out to play in the flowers.

I should add he had never shown any interest in these before (or since).

There must be some kind of undocumented instinct that allows domestic animals to identify, in times of need, just exactly those items that are valued, irreplaceable, and easily destroyed

She Who Must Dust bent the stylus on an Asaka. The folks at Linn straightened it, and I don't think they even charged me for it. About the time it came back from Linn, my mother-in-law was due for a visit, and SWMD went into a cleaning frenzy, bending the damn thing again! No joy at Linn--they couldn't straighten it a second time. Once she saw the bill for the re-tip, SWMD left the LP-12 alone.

I've always started the platter before even putting an LP on it, so it simply never occurred to me that you might damage a cartridge during startup....

It still seems pretty unlucky though.

Paul

The stylus fell off my AT ML150 (cost me $150 to replace, shortly thereafter I accidentally bumped the tonearm which broke off the entire cantilever).

By the way, Naim brags they won't fail if the circuit is shorted, so no worries about the speaker leads touching, right?

--Eric

I've suffered from the usual kids' fingers in speaker cones and shredded grilles at the hands of cats, but I can only blame myself for the two most expensive hifi blunders.

The straightforward mishap was dropping my old Technics CD player down stairs and breaking off the plastic CD tray. I ought to have made a better job of winding the mains lead up!

The bizarrest loss was whilst on the way to a hifi store in London for advice on what upgrading might be worthwhile on a Roksan Tabriz tonearm. The first mistake was having the arm wrapped in nothing more than a carrier bag (I know, I know) rather than the bulky but relatively safe box it came in.

Being rush hour in London, the roads were busy and in my desire to cross one of them, I set off in a sprint between the cars. This would have been fine, but I was suffering from muscle spasms in my back and my body decided it would be a good moment to have one. In mid flight and desparate to avoid the ubiquitous white van which was bearing down on me, the sudden stab of pain made me drop the carrier bag in the road.

I looked round to see carrier bag and Tabriz go under the wheels of the van which hared off into the distance.

To say the arm was a write off is an understatement. The possible advice on upgrades was now only ever going to be "ditch the Tabriz, it wont do your deck justice". I kept the bag of bits until fairly recently as proof of the power of white-van-man and just in case the insurance company didn't believe me.

I tend to leave the hifi at home nowadays.

Thanks Ed!

That's a classic and further proof that "shit happens" in the world we live in.

Andrew

Andrew Randle
Currently in the "Linn Binn"