Admissions of Idiocy

1. Buying a replacement LP12 6 weeks before the Cirkus mod was released

2. Playing the Strat through the Epos 14s and blowing the tweeter

3. Buying Meridian 101/105 amps (1979) and not even dem'ing the Naims

Everyones a classic

I've managed to figure out most of the anacronyms used on the forum, but FEP has got me. Please please please tell me what FEP means.

TIA
Graeme

AFAIK Joe Petrik devised the revised scale - its an excellent thread and well worth finding.

Tony Lonorgan is the Flat Earth King.

Alex

BTW Bosh, some people would congratulate you on avoiding a Cirkused deck.

Lifting floorboards to hide speaker cable, screwing the boards back down and into the cable underneath creating a nice little short circuit.

I wasn't going to tell anyone but what the hell.

Steve B

Fully documented and very painful...

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

Taking the baseboard off my old LP12, telling everyone how much better it sounds, remembering to warn that the Valhalla board is live and to always unplug before fiddling with the deck, then ignoring / forgetting my own advice….

"Hmm, that back spring needs a little tweak… KZZZZZZZZZZZZ… Ouch!… F**K!".

Tony.

Being a student, few upgrade options were within reach but I could afford a few metres of NAC A4 cable. So, I bought some but as I tried to hook up the speakers I discovered that the cheap push-to-connect terminals on my PSBs were too narrow to fit the Naim cable.

Ah, an easy fix, I thought. Just drill out the terminals a bit, then stuff the NAC A4 into the newly created carefully chamferred apertures(TM) -- errr, I mean holes. It didn't occur to me, though, that the crossover bits were on the other side of the terminals. On the left speaker I punctured an electrolytic cap and on right one I drilled through the coil.

Interestingly, it didn't affect the performance that much.

Joe

quote:

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Interestingly, it didn't affect the performance that much.

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sound's like you should get some bonus FEPs for that

Peter

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

P.S. does answering to this thread lower our resale values?

I guess I'm done for if the guy I'm hoping to sell them to is reading this; but he has got a pile of Krells, snigger.

Alex

After discovering this issue with my setup, I noted a decidable gain in both musicality and performance after reconnecting the second lead from the turntable and switching the 32.5 back to stereo. Has anyone else tried this outrageous tweak?

Erik

Alex

I've had a Tony L type experience with an old amplifier though, when I used to be a service engineer.

It had uninsulated mains terminals on the power switch, and only a few seconds after being warned not to touch it by accident, I picked up the unit (which I'd been working on upside down) to turn it over, proceeding to put a finger across the mains.

The noise I made went something like 'KINELLLLL!

Andy.

Also in a digressional fashion, I decided that my old bedside lamp need a switch as it didn't have one. I fashoned one from a paper clip. No joking, blew myself across the room when I 'switched' it on. That was years ago though.

Whilst working in a large Hi-Fi store in London (England) I had a customer who was a Doctor (G.P.). He purchased a Quad 34/306, CDP and speakers. It was our policy always to offer free installation and he accepted.

Now, Quad units have standard IEC female sockets but Quad did not supply any mains cables, just the male IEC connector. They did this so you could choose the length of mains cable necessary. This meant wiring the 13A plug to the end of a cable.

Anyhow, at his home, I'd fitted a 13A plug to the end of some cable and was in the midst of fitting the male IEC connector to the other end. I had the ground wire in one hand and the live in the other and was twisting each between thumbs and forefingers prior to lacing them into the plug. Well, Doctor Death (as he was soon to be known) plugged the other end into a mains socket and turned me on.

After a swift cheap rate flying lesson and banging my head on the mantlepiece on the other side of the room, the good Doctor was most apologetic but then offered me some brandy! I knew then that he was *really* trying to get rid of me.

Best Regards,
Mark Dunn

PS. I wonder if his name was Harold Shipman?

By the way, the power off time was minimal, 3-4 minutes tops, but the system improved markedly over the two days. Is it possible that it is not so much warming up that improved it as settling down? Just a thought.
Paul.

Tim

quote:

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Joe has a clear lead so far

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This didn't happen to me but if this guy posted on the forum, he'd easily take first prize.

A store in Winnipeg, Canada got a call from an obviously stoned metalhead that one of his 7-way specials suddenly had no bass. What's more, the speaker smelled funny, like something was burnt inside.

The rocker was eager to get it fixed so his jam session in the basement could continue, so he asked if the store's technician could replace the driver on the spot if he brought it to the store. Sure, no problem. Lots of 15-inch crap drivers in stock.

He brought it in and explained to the technician what had happened. The tech had a quick look and noted the obviously charred bass driver, confirming what he had expected: the voice coil was fried.

One by one the tech removed the screws holding the driver in place. Then, using a screw driver, he pried the fried unit out. As it was removed, the driver created a vacuum, pulling air into the port and set the smoldering insulation ablaze.

"F'in' cool. Wait til I tell my friends."

Joe

I once switched on one of my hand-made amps to witness a "miniature flare" as a tantalum capacitor launched itself towards the ceiling and then broke into half a dozen flaming pieces which, as if in slow motion, slowly wafted towards my new carpet. I managed to intercept all of them but one which burned a nice hole in the fabric of my sofa. The small hole still reminds me of this years later.

On another ocassion some friends and I were having a session and swapping bits of our systems and so on like you do. Anyhow, at one point I connected my entire system up, switched everything on, turned up the volume and started the CD...NOTHING! (Strange). I checked the CD was playing. I checked the CD cables to each monoblock amp and the power connections. NOTHING. (Worrying). I checked that the bi-wire speaker cables were connected up and not shorting. NOTHING. Panic! - something must be broken. After what seemed like a long time later and very distressed I suddenly experienced a classic Homer "D'oh". I had connected the bi-wire speaker cables to the back of each amp so that the tweeter terminals both went to neg and the woofer terminals both went to pos. What are the odds of making that mistake twice on each amp?

Many years ago I was working in a TV repair shop I was left to fix all the sets while the others went out to calls, I was checking out valve black and white TV with a dry joint (I said it was a while ago) when I spotted the joint arcing so with out switching off I put the un-earthed soldering iron on it, like we all ways did, but their wasn't enough solder to make the joint so a picked up the reel of solder and touched the joint and a couple of hundred volts shot up the solder and up my arm. Their was another time when I was lifting the chassis out of a colour set and the aerial lead was stopping me so I took hold of the plug and I got a right shock from one hand on the aerial lead across my chest to the other hand on chassis, if I let go of both the chassis would of knocked the neck of the tube so I had to force my self to let go of the aerial plug then pull it out by the lead clip the chassis back in before lying down till I recovered.

pete

Alex

Not quite as Mad Bad and Dangerous, even I learn eventually.

pete