Your Worst Audio Breakdown

I've been really lucky over the past 35 years. Only amps have given me problems and they were minor. My old Kenwood M2 developed a cold solder joint after 15 years and a local shop resoldered a bunch of joints and it has been fine ever since-still powering up the Double Advents in the garage after 25 years. I had a massive Rotel RB-1090 power amp that was known for fusing its power switch in the "on" position and mine did it and that was kind of cool. The dealer fixed it under warranty. That's it but I've been mostly a SS owner. Sometimes I think we need another forum category here for tube guys and gals for topics like, "why do I have hum?, my amp stopped working, my left channel cuts in and out, I hear hiss" etc. Oh yeah, My brand new PSB Synchrony Ones that I used to have came with a loud mechanical buzz inside one of them but it was just the crossover board that hadn't been screwed down tight and I fixed that myself.

There was another episode, not a failure, but idiots at SOTA. I bought their Time Domain speakers from a local dealer and had problems getting them in the right spot, then problems finding the right seat height. I ended up having to sit on a bar stool to get the sound to where it gelled. When I made comparisons with the ones in the store, I gave it up to the problem being my room.

The sales rep at the store was a woodworker and proposed making some new enclosures for the speakers with exotic woods. When I removed the old drivers and crossovers from the old enclosures, I was shocked to find some crossover componenets missing from the board on one of the speakers. I called SOTA and they said it was no big deal and shouldn't make any difference!

In the end my insistence showed this was the root of the problem I was dealing with for a year and a half.

I was using my Marantz 2270 receiver as a preamp through my Sumo Andromeda into some Polks. The right channel just stopped. Every test I ran indicated no issues. I finally isolated the amp as the only possible problem, and pulled apart the Sumo (no easy task). Aside from getting a well deserved cleaning there was nothing wrong with the Sumo. I have no clue what happened to this day.

My dad purchased a used Adcom 5802 and hooked it up to his ML Aerius i's. He was just warming the thing up running it on his tuner and didn't realize it was pumping straight DC out of the right channel.

I lost an EAD 7000mkii Dac and one of my favorite vintage HK receivers during a storm :(

Well, just one year ago this month I purchased a Jolida 3000B pre-amp and a pair of Jolida 3000A power amps here on Audiogone. The pre-amp came from a dealer new in the box, but the power amps were aquired pre-owned from a private party. When the driver from FED-EX was bringing in the second amp, he (intentionally) dropped it from waist height right in front of me like it was a box of rags or something! I was horrified, but since both amps played when I hooked them up, I did not call the supervisor ,(my mistake),. 3 months later a loose connection was the cause of the first repair to the amp that was dropped. I just got the same amp back from its second reair,(a burnt-out relay), 2 weeks ago. It took about 2 months this time. FED-EX would not cover the first repair because I would not turn the amp over to them so that they could "inspect" it. I do not like FED-EX anymore. After I recieve my USB adapter I plan on posting pics of my system.