CDs You Are Afraid To Play On Your System?

Posted by: Naimed-In-NY on 22 December 2004

This probably sounds ridiculous, but here goes ....

Current system: CDX2/202/PSC2/200/Soliloquoy 5.3 speakers with NACA A5.

About eight months ago, before I upgraded my Marantz CD player for the CDX2, I played a new CD on my system. It was the soundtrack to the movie Gladiator. For those of you not familiar with it, I suppose it can best be described as classical/movie battle music. The CD received excellent reviews both for its music and sound quality and I agree with those reviews. It is the type of CD that really can test a system, with a lot of sounds, a lot of instruments, and, to my ears, incredible dynamic swings. Anyway, although I had given the CD several spins in my car, the first time I played it in my home system, at loud but not terribly loud volumes, I somehow damaged a tweeter on one of my speakers. (I don't have any more information on exactly what happened.) This caused tremendous inconvenience, as I had to box up the speaker and have it freighted to the manufacturer for repair. Because it was out of warranty, there also was a modest cost involved, as well as somewhat considerable shipping costs (a single speaker is about 80 lbs.) After two weeks or so without music - which was very difficult - I got the speaker back and my system has sounded great ever since. With the CDX2, it sounds awesome to me.

Here's the question. Since getting my speaker back, I've been afraid to play that particular CD again on my home system. Ridiculous? Paranoid? Who knows? I would love to hear it again, and like I said, it would "push" my system and probably sound amazing, but I am very fearful of damaging one of my speakers again. Am I being ridiculous, or are there certain CDs (or albums) that are dangerous to play with certain speakers (or other stereo equipment). Has anyone else ever experienced anything like this?

Thanks for any help to this unusual request.

Mike
Posted on: 22 December 2004 by jayd
There are performances of the 1812 Overture with actual cannons, muskets, and all manner of ordnance going off... IIRC, some of these had warning labels about doing your system an injury. Not sure if it was hype or not.

The Mercury Living Presence disc from the 50s (?) rates highly for bombastic appeal:

1812 Overture
Posted on: 24 December 2004 by Aiken Drum
Mike,

From a different perspective, there was one CD and one track that I used to use for system diagnostics.

I used to run a pair of Quad ELS 63 with Gradient SW63s powered by a pair of DPA Digital 50s Amps. The way the DPA amps worked was to include the speakers in the circuit somehow (ask Rob Watts the designer)to increase the damping factor.

Well the Quads being electrostatics, they were clearly powered, and it was always fun powering up the system. The output fuses in the amp running the quads would tend to get a little fried, and this degraded the sound quality. This also manifested itself when there had been a power cut and the system came back on line - unfortunately where I lived at the time, power cuts were a frequent happening, so I got to the stage where I shut the system down when not in use to avoid damage.

I got into the habit of checking the system before a listening session to see whether it was OK and the track I used was "This is you life" by Simple Minds. The track opens with a shimmering gong or such like - but if the shimmering sounded distorted in any way, I knew I had to change one of the fuses.

The system played beautiful music, but it was tempermental. So from my point of view, I had a very useful CD. I was afraid to play my system without checking first.

Merry Christmas,

Brad

I can hear music, sweet sweet music
Posted on: 24 December 2004 by sjust
quote:
Originally posted by J. A. Toon:
I'd suggest that properly designed speakers operating within their usable limits powered by an appropriately designed and powerful enough amplifier should be able to play absolutely anything without the slightest problem. And for most speakers in sensible sized rooms, this should amount to "bloody loud".
(...)
John.


Reminds me the Bose advertisement in the 70's where they encouraged people to listen to the 50 Hz hum after connecting their 901 speakers to AC...

Don't do that at home ! Eek

Best regards, freundliche Grüße

Stefan
Posted on: 24 December 2004 by AL4N
i wrecked 3 tweeter's on my first set of "real hi-fi" speaker's (mission 751's)with the track Time fron Pink Floyd,i think it was a bit within the first 30 seconds or so,in the end we bought proper speaker's,but i still don't play that track any where near as loud as i would like to and i think my JMLab 915's could handle it.
Posted on: 26 December 2004 by Colin Lorenson
The Gladiator soundtrack, esp. the battle track is about as perfect a demo track for "scale" as you could get.

However like most demo tracks, musically it's shit. Pretty much a blatant rip off the Holst's Planets. I play it for a giggle every now and again to scare the neighbours. It works too.

Colin Lorenson

You take such pleasure in revenge,
the perfect settled score,
but it just whets your appetite for more.
Posted on: 27 December 2004 by trickytree
quote:
There are performances of the 1812 Overture with actual cannons, muskets, and all manner of ordnance going off... IIRC, some of these had warning labels about doing your system an injury. Not sure if it was hype or not.


Yeah, Had a Telarc 1812 with digitaly recorded cannons. Also had Round Up from the same lable and that had digitaly recorded cows, horses gunshts and whipcracks.
I had my Yamaha NS1000m's at the time and the neighbours on both sides ganged up on me and threatend mucho trouble if I didnt turn the volume down.
The look on the elderly couple,s faces as they walked past my window one day just as the cows were giving a rendition of there digitised Mooooo......classic!

Paul.
Posted on: 27 December 2004 by Naimed-In-NY
Thanks for the responses. I know I'm being illogical, but having done something bad to a tweeter playing this particular CD, I've been reluctant to go through that again. Anyway, as John suggests, perhaps it is related to the amp. Perhaps I'll give the track another spin at a low volume and see what happens.

Mike
Posted on: 29 December 2004 by Lomo
Your problem made me recall " A Letter to the New Owner " from my speaker manufacturer...
"Your speakers can take large amounts of punishment but they are not invincible. They are NOT musical instruments or party speakers. No Hi-Fi speaker can endure the torture that musical instrument speakers take, which are manufactured to withstand severe punishment. The musical content of some rock bands use high levals of distortion to give special sound effects.
Do not allow your amplifiers to "clip" [distort] for too long. This is a sure way to damage your speakers.
So if you like heavy metal or rock music, limit your amplifier output leval, as the distortion content recorded from these bands puts incredible strain on speakers and, when coupled with high current amplifiers anything can happen."
Would this be fair comment and do most manufacturers give this type of advice to their clients?