Turn table disaster
Posted by: dayjay on 12 July 2016
Just took ELO's Discovery out of its jacket and popped it on the turntable when, just before I put the needle on the disk I notice, to my horror, that the needle is bent way off to the left of the cartridge. Having no option overwise I gingerly attempted to bend it back only to find that I now have no left channel output. My lovely wife and son are out of the house but I suspect a cleaning or play misadventure that has been either undetected or quietly hushed up. I will contact Rega to see if, on soome remote and unlikely chance, it is possible for a repair to be done but otherwise I suspect I am looking at a £900 new cartidge. Ever so slightly gutted!
Hell's round the corner!
David, I pranged my Klyde some years ago and I put in a claim under my contents insurance. To my delight, they paid up (minus the excess of course). Worth a go at least.
I suspect I will have to make a claim Kevin, quick look on the net suggests at least a cost of £500 for a rebuild. These things are sent to try us I suppose.
A horrible discovery, David. I feel for you. At least you've got another lovely source to use while you sort out a new cartridge. It's very many years ago that I had a similar experience with a cartridge and I still remember that sinking feeling. The fragility of the arm/cartridge is an inherent risk associated with vinyl I suppose.
Mike
Yep, my Benz cartridge mysteriously lost it's whole stylus a few years back! No-one owned up to it, God knows what they did. Insurance paid up with no fuss.
I know it's easy with hindsight to say you should have put the stylus cover on; on the plus side at least you've given your poor ears a break from that dreadful ELO.
A worst nightmare! With the SG having no dust cover, I am really pleased the Lyra has a good stylus guard. Having said that putting it on at the end of a session takes total concentration especially with aging hands. Glad to here others experience of insurance policies paying up. Hope you sorted soon David.
After spending a week talking to various insurance company reps who didn't have a clue what I was talking about or what a cartridge is I have finally dropped my poor cartridge off at Doug Brady's in Warrington so that it can be rebuilt. Sadly I am likely to be in Turkey when it returns but something to look forward to anyway.
I am surprised the insurance company reps did not understand what you were talking about. I have all my boxes individually identified on my insurance manifest. You need to submit a claim.
If you have the appropriate accidental cover for your hifi you should pursue the claim with your insurers. Some years ago my Arkiv suffered a similar fate to your cart. The loss adjuster visited my house AND went to talk to my hifi dealer, who told them it was quite a common occurrence. Skandia insurance tipped up the full replacement cost for a new one - around £2k at the time.
We got there eventually and they will be covering the cost but it was a bit of a saga to be honest.
Insurance companies always hate to pay out.
dayjay posted:We got there eventually and they will be covering the cost but it was a bit of a saga to be honest.
Saga eh? Giving your age away there.
Enjoy your holiday!
I had the same thing happen to me, I asked my dealer to send it to rega for a rebuild, they did and for a reasonable charge. The dealer opted to give me theirs while mine was rebuild and they kept that.
Sorry to hear about the misfortune. I share your pain having been through an almost similar experience many years ago. I accidentally or foolishly damaged the needle on my Audio Technica cartridge and recall being quite upset about it. I have since sold my turntable rig and am solely on CDs and digital music now.
In my case it was one of the cats leaping from one of my 250s, where she used to sleep. One advantage of now using valves, she would cook!
Sorry, I know how upsetting such a discovery is. Resolved in my case via the house insurance.
M
bluedog posted:Insurance companies always hate to pay out.
Yep. That's why you should not insure what you can afford to cover yourself.
winkyincanada posted:Yep. That's why you should not insure what you can afford to cover yourself.
Absolutely. Ensuing rate increases resulting from filing a claim are the bigger factor here. A damaged cart may well fall under an insurable claim, but paying out of pocket might be the more prudent fiduciary choice in the long-term. To me homeowners insurance is reserved for truly catastrophic events and a damaged cart seems far from that.
Dajay, I truly feel for you but it could be worse. In the midst of the lightning storms last month our telephone line got struck. Of course the router was connected to the telephone line and so was a fair bit of my system in one way or another!
The strike was that bad it evaporated about half a mile of overhead telephone lines. The effect on the house was pretty catastrophic. Almost everything with sensitive electronics got well and truly zapped! Even stupid stuff like my light dimmers.
I had to send a large chunk of my system back to Naim for repair but on the positive side it has come back sounding better than ever.
I have to say the insurance company has been very understanding - it's the one that favours the brave and the bold! They just said go ahead and get everything repaired or replaced and send us the bill.
Just a heads-up for all of you that unplug your systems during storms, I've been reliably informed that it would not have made any real difference to the damage. It was the conection to the router (and everything that was on the same ring main or indirectly connected) that caused most of the damage. You need to think carefully how you can totally isolate every single direct or indirect connection to your hifi if you want complete peace of mind.
Good news is it's unlikely to happen again!
As long as you have accidental damage cover on your home insurance they should pay out. Yes, a lot of home polices now have no cliams discount but given the cost of a cart It should still make financial sense to claim.
Gary
Geko posted:Dajay, I truly feel for you but it could be worse. In the midst of the lightning storms last month our telephone line got struck. Of course the router was connected to the telephone line and so was a fair bit of my system in one way or another!
The strike was that bad it evaporated about half a mile of overhead telephone lines. The effect on the house was pretty catastrophic. Almost everything with sensitive electronics got well and truly zapped! Even stupid stuff like my light dimmers.
I had to send a large chunk of my system back to Naim for repair but on the positive side it has come back sounding better than ever.
I have to say the insurance company has been very understanding - it's the one that favours the brave and the bold! They just said go ahead and get everything repaired or replaced and send us the bill.
Just a heads-up for all of you that unplug your systems during storms, I've been reliably informed that it would not have made any real difference to the damage. It was the conection to the router (and everything that was on the same ring main or indirectly connected) that caused most of the damage. You need to think carefully how you can totally isolate every single direct or indirect connection to your hifi if you want complete peace of mind.
Good news is it's unlikely to happen again!
Now that would have been distressing in the extreme. How awful
Geko posted:Dajay, I truly feel for you but it could be worse. In the midst of the lightning storms last month our telephone line got struck. Of course the router was connected to the telephone line and so was a fair bit of my system in one way or another!
The strike was that bad it evaporated about half a mile of overhead telephone lines. The effect on the house was pretty catastrophic. Almost everything with sensitive electronics got well and truly zapped! Even stupid stuff like my light dimmers.
I had to send a large chunk of my system back to Naim for repair but on the positive side it has come back sounding better than ever.
I have to say the insurance company has been very understanding - it's the one that favours the brave and the bold! They just said go ahead and get everything repaired or replaced and send us the bill.
Just a heads-up for all of you that unplug your systems during storms, I've been reliably informed that it would not have made any real difference to the damage. It was the conection to the router (and everything that was on the same ring main or indirectly connected) that caused most of the damage. You need to think carefully how you can totally isolate every single direct or indirect connection to your hifi if you want complete peace of mind.
Good news is it's unlikely to happen again!
Isn't this what's called "Tempting fate" Geko ?
It is but I'll trust in the odds of lightning not striking twice in the same place!
Was your system connected via wire or wireless to the router? (I assume via Ethernet or some such means, but I may be wrong which is why I ask.)
Geko posted:It is but I'll trust in the odds of lightning not striking twice in the same place!
The same thing happened to me a couple of years ago, a strike through the phone line. It also hit my neighbour about 100yds away. Two weeks later, just after he'd replaced everything, he was hit again.
I'm now much more rigorous about unplugging things, including phone line and TV aerial. I've also installed a fibre optic network in the house, which unlike copper Ethernet cables, is non-conductive.