Aaagggghhhhh - the little monsters

Actually, I was going to ask if there's some sort of spray that you can treat your Naim gear with to keep the critters away from it. Well is there ? My first is due next April and I am already having a recurring nightmare where a housefull of screaming tots poke sharp pointy things into me speaker drivers and fill up me hi-fi orifi with jam and butter based commestibles.

That's nothing, I assure you. My three year old pushed in the dust caps on my woofers on one pair of speakers, pushed in the soft dome tweeters on another pair, and, for good measure when he was but two years old, removed the stylus/cantalever from my Benz Micro Glider L2.

Judd

My wife "breaking" our Ittok...actually the anti-skate mechanism's string just so happened to break from age when she was spinning tunes. Still..I had to go with the moment;-) I think it took several hours for her to start speaking to me again after I told her it wasn't really *her* fault.

regards,

dave

Not hi-fi related but when our eldest was about one I collected him from nursery (about 1 mile from home) in the car, he was a bit crabby so as I was putting him in his car seat I let him play with the car keys - that seemed to calm him down a bit. I closed his door and walked round to the drivers door and heard 'ker-lunk' as he pressed the zapper and locked the doors ... oh dear I thought.

So there I was, standing in my suit, trying to gesticulate to him the action of pressing the zapper again to unlock the car - he of course thought this was a great game and chuckled and waved back. Hmmm what should I do - could try and find a brick and break the window - nah a bit serious and anyway it would terrify the little one. At least he's strapped in his car seat so can't try and start the car and head off into the London traffic.

Luckily we had some friends who lived nearby so a quick call summoned one of them to stand guard by the car while I sprinted the 1mile home and back to get the spare car keys - fastest 2 miles I've EVER run.

My HiFi solution - put the LP12 and Kans on wall shelves, get an Ikea cupboard with a door for the rest of the boxes. It doesn't last for ever, our youngest is nearly 3 and I'm thinking of getting a proper rack again.

Phil

Apart from the usual tweeter poking, I got a new cartridge and arm rebuild courtesy of one of my little darlings who decided to take up "scratching" for a hobby. Oh how we laughed.

Equally amusing was the time when she decided to feed the video. Imagine my delight when I discovered that she had used chopsticks. When asked she explained that she was trying to push the food all the way into it's tummy.

These days they just seem to have a habit for smashing remote controls although I am assured that it is always "an accident".

Dave

Big monsters: Had a major party when two people "landed" on my LP12 on SO table, and crashed through the table with the TT onto the floor inside the table frame. That was buggered then

Little monsters: 2 year olds found the system and had fun turning the knobs all the way round, past the stop points. The on/off knob on the HiCap just spun around. It had to go back to Naim cos it caused lots of shorting inside. Major service. Good result though, cos now I have my own music room with a no kids policy.

Don't tell me stories like this! I've got my first coming on Feb 2nd.

-=> Mike Hanson <=-

Don't hasten their development too much

Our one year old is a bum shuffler (hope this means the same stateside as it does here! - and I hope it means the same in the UK amongst those who aren't parents yet as for those who are!!). Which means he ain't as mobile as his little friends who are charging around on their hind legs or crawling. It means we can plonk him in the middle of a room and it takes say 5 mins to reach the TV/fireplace/door/LP12/etc.

Unfortunately he's starting to show a desire to attain verticality - maybe it's time to downgrade my XX-2 to my old K9??

There is one solution - don't have any in the first place...

Other than that - I don't think there IS a solution to prevent kids touching stuff they're not supposed to! Of course, if you're told "no" as a kid, that usually becomes an open invitation to do exactly what you're not supposed to

I bet the silence immediately after the death of that LP12 was deafening - ouch!!! NOT funny...

I broke the cantilever on my Ortofon 520 by knocking it into the cartridge with a duster (the phone rang and made me jump!).

I also lost the cantilever on a Dynavector 10x4 Gold High - like Keyser Soze, it was there one minute and gone the next... Gutted, since it was one of allegedly only 50 in the UK

__________________________
Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;
Strike the bell and bide the danger
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.

I must be lucky.

I moved the LP12 to a wall shelf before my first arrived, the rest of the Naim kit is built like a tank so frankly there's little he can do to damage it.

Lewis learnt to use a puck and the CD5 from about the age of two, but he now has his own CDP / amp so no need to use mine.

I've obviously been lucky with the speakers!

Andy.

Ever heard a CDS3 / 552 on full volume through 500 / SBLs?

I did last weekend courtesy of either my 9 yr old or 4 yr old.Both blamed each other. Luckily no damage done

Know any farmers? Get a couple of lengths of electric fence and transformer, that should keep them away from your kit, or just make a corral for them after a few weeks you should be able to cut the current.

Surely the volume control was moved by "Mr Nobody" brcause what ever happens it is never any member of the household

Howard

So much for the children - my mother once came round to babysit. After coming back from a pleasant evening out, she proudly told me that I'd 'forgotten' to switch off the HiFi, but that she had done the favour of switching it all off for me!

David

Wall shelves...

Almost 32 years ago, I returned from Taiwan with a newborn son and a hifi sourced from Hong Kong, which included a R-to-R tape deck.

As Eric got more mobile, I kept moving the equipment higher and higher on wall shelves...until one day I found him perched precariously on a table I had left too close to the shelf, with his finger stuck into the take-up reel, watching with scientific interest the tape flowing onto the floor.

I immediatey moved Eric and the table and put the deck up for sale.

Gene Rubin, purveyor of Naim, Roksan, etc. in Los Angeles, argues that we should teach the rugrats how to use the equipment as soon as possible. Seems like a good idea - know when someone gave Eric a small portable player (for kids) he was happy playing his records on it.

Regards.

Phil

However you should remember that you have to be kind to your offspring, regardless of how they smash up your possesions as they

select the care home that they will put you in and then not visit you.........<g>

Derek

<< >>

Good old accident cover on the household insurance is suddenly worth it.
When my LP12 got bombed, it was my fault to have it there during a party, and also it was my fault for letting the little loves near the system in the first place.
Not worth getting upset about.
I saw a picture of a child that had sucked on a live mains lead - pulled the plug out of a kettle or something and stuck it in his mouth. That is why we should be keeping them away from the gear, not for the sake of the gear. It wasn't pretty.

quote:

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Originally posted by Mike Hanson:
Don't tell me stories like this! I've got my first coming on Feb 2nd.

-=> Mike Hanson <=-

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I forgot to mention the clock episode - we had a lovely Wellington clock sitting on the mantlepiece - it didn't bounce.

Mike

My daughter seems strangely unintereted in my HiFi (phew) but she loves pulling CD and LPs out of their storage areas and dropping remote controls on the floor!

quote:

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Originally posted by Menilmontant1948:
At least you only had yourself to blame.

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Actually - I blamed my sister - it was her on the phone, I hate talking to her, and the dappy bitch always phones whenever it's the most inconvenient - try right in the middle of "Alone again or" during Love's set at Glastonbury (while in a little situation where speaking to someone like that was NOT good for my mental health - well, for the next 5 hours or so anyway...), or just as I'm dishing up tea so I then burn my hand putting the food down to grab the phone. Basically any time the phone goes during an awkward situation, it's her phoning to say nothing much different to the last call.

Thank god I'm not blood related to her... (I'm adopted)

Oh - I had accident insurance though - so the cartridge oblivion wasn't so bad...

__________________________
Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;
Strike the bell and bide the danger
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.

quote:

---

Don't tell me stories like this! I've got my first coming on Feb 2nd.

---

Mike

congratulations. You're sure it'll be "ride on time"?

Some folk have been observing how the ledge at the top of the bass box of our SBLs are at just the right height to 'help' rugrats stand... I guess we'll burn this bridge when we come to it.

Rico - SM/Mullet Audio