Your Worst Audio Breakdown

Tab110, you let your girlfriend mess with your system? My wife won't go near, tells her friends she'd probably be escorted off the premises just for getting to close.

I too replaced a Counterpoint. The preamp starting producing distortion and the red waring lamps came on, so I used that as an excuse upgrade.

More dramatically, I dropped a speaker on to the pavement and busted the cabinet. Luckily Hales was still in business. If that happened now, I would not be as happy to upgrade.

I'm not sure if it was the flames that came out of both sides of my Marantz amp in 1970, or the time I burned up a Plinius amp that subsequently blew all the drivers in my Dunlavy III speakers, or is it now when my Aesthetix Callisto pre-amp flashed popped and died. It is one vacation in California while I stay in the cold, with an unknown price to be paid.

I once attached a subwooker to a pass labs x350 power amp incorrectly. i did not understand the manuals instructions to be honest. pass really should include diagrams and warnings which are clear, not commentary type instructions. the amp died and was given in part exchange for a new amp. a single diagram in the manual as to how to instal a powered subwoofer would have prevented this! the sub woofer also died. the sub was sent back to the manufacturer, mj acoustics. i was quoted for repair and declined, asking them to send back the sub. they became rather unfriendly all of a sudden for reasons i did not understand, threatening legal action, suggesting i will attempt to sell the item on an auction site and there was a safelty issue! this is of course nonsense as hundreds of items are listed as faulty/ repairs required. one call to them from my friend who is a solicitor, resulted in the damaged sub at my door early next morning, and shortly after at the local dumping skip. the experience upset me so much, i did not even want to recover some money. yes, things can go wrong, we are all human, but manufacturers dont always help. like i mentioned earlier, one diagram in the pass instruction manual would have prevented this whole unpleasant experience. however pass want to stay above the crowd with hi end arrogance and think it too low for them to provide a diagram in their manuals. surely, thats only for the likes of budget kit! they are wrong. i really like their kit though, but am very cautious when hooking it up.

I have had a few over the years but my most recent was with an ayon Spirit 2. I bought it used from the original owner who only had it for 3 months. About 3 weeks after I got it there was a flash in a tube and a dead channel. I contacted ayon in Arizona. They wouldn't even consider covering a repair under warranty because I wasn't the orignial purchaser. This is now a 4 month old amp and using their tubes! I shipped it to them and they said it was a catastrophic falure of a kt88 tube. Failed so fast the fuse didn't blow before the amp was damaged. Cost me about 500.00 to have it fixed. They would not budge on anything with the cost of repair even though it would have been covered if I was the original purchaser. Not a fan of Ayon, sold it as soon as I got it back.