Ever Have One Of Those Evenings?


Tonight, I went downstairs, turned on the system, and it sounded like crap. Within an hour I had:

>Discovered that one of my Thiel 2.2's has either a dead woofer (most likely), or a crossover or internal wiring problem. Testing to diagnose will commence tomorrow, tonight I'm too P.O.'ed.

>Additionally discovered that the tweeter on the other side is distorting badly, and will need the dome/voice-coil assembly replaced (again).

>Confirmed that my most costly set of interconnects has a bad jack connection (these are Harmonic Technology Magic Link Ones, which naturally feature a plug design that cannot easily be opened up for inspection or repairs without destroying the heat-shrink sleeve).

>Faced the distinct possibility that my futzing around behind the preamp trying to ascertain the culprit in the latter problem - without first turning down the volume - may well have been the cause of least one of the first two problems.

>Realized that now, not only can't I listen to my system the regular way, but since the OEM (non-standard) headphone amp output jack I got from Musical Fidelity's distributor to replace the faulty original in my X-Cans quickly developed the same exact problem as the old one (no right channel with either set of 'phones), I cannot even listen with my headphones for the time being, except through my CD-R recorder's wimpy monitoring jack.

Looks like I'm on a steady diet of cable movies and NPR for a while. (Way to go, Trent Lott: at least you'll be out-of-sight, out-of-mind by this time next week, you plastic-haired cretin - your plight is the one redeeming feature of my evening!)
zaikesman
Look at the bright side, no one got hurt, right? I acquired a German Sheppard last year, he was chasing my other dog all over the house, terrorizing the mutt. I lay on the floor laughing and enjoying the show, until he knocked one of my speakers over. Guess where it landed? Yep, my balls ached for days.
Baal the Audio god requires more sacrifice from your wallet. What profiteth a man if he loses his sound but keeps his wallet. Oh ye of little faith!
Sounds like Z has a pain in the ass to deal with and Jeff had a pain in the... Oh, never mind : )

I've only ever had a few "bad" things happen to me and luckily, nothing was damaged. This does not include the tweeters and mids that i've blown due to "over enthusiastic jamming", as i can't count those as mistakes since it was my fault.

The incident that sticks out in my mind the most was when one of my favorite preamps developed a problem. At random points, it would literally let out some type of low frequency "belch" that was VERY loud to say the least. The first time it did it, i had it hooked up in my HT system ( temporary fill in ). The preamp was connected to an amp that does about 1500 wpc at clipping and this was feeding four 12's and two 8's. Needless to say, the potential for "rumble" is pretty phenomenal with this system.

One morning at about 6 AM, I was laying in bed sound asleep and i heard a loud "CRACK" and them something shook the hell out of the house. It sounded like a car had literally crashed into the living room, which is right next to the master bedroom. Needless to say, it scared the hell out of me and i pretty much stood straight up in bed. My girlfriend, who was in the shower at the time, came flying out in a towel to see what happened. She said that it was so loud and startling that she jumped while in the shower and almost lost her footing. The "funny" thing is that we had no idea what had caused the noise, as neither of us was in that specific room. In plain English, it was hard to know exactly where the noise was coming from because it was SO loud and the entire house shook. After inspecting my various audio systems and scratching our heads, she went back to the shower and i went back to bed.

A couple of weeks later, she and i were sitting and watching a movie with the sound being fed through the defective preamp. I can't remember the movie, but i remember that it was a sci-fi / space oriented movie. Just as some type of eruption or explosion took place, the preamp let loose with another "belch". YOW !!! That was either the "best" special effect that we had ever experienced or my system was about to blow up : )

Once again, it scared the hell out of us. At least this time we knew it was something in the stereo. Through a process of elimination, i was able to figure out what was causing the problem and pulled the preamp from the system. Luckily, nothing was damaged while this was taking place. Back to the manufacturer it went and the problem was solved.

On another occasion, i hooked a CD player with no volume control directly to an amp. I did this by mistake via a "cd direct" switch on a preamp that i had at the time. The CD direct bypassed EVERYTHING in the preamp, including the volume control. Bare in mind i did this at 1 in the morning with my girlfriend sleeping in the next room. I popped in a disc and as soon as it started, i had full power pumping from an amp rated for 200+ wpc into a pair of speakers that were rated at 96 dB's efficiency. It was REAL loud for about two seconds. That is, until i could hit the power switch. My girlfriend never said anything to me about it as she had to know it was a mistake, but i bet it "startled her" to say the least. I know it did that to me : ) I was expecting to see her come barreling out of the bedroom with a hatchet in hand, if ya know what i mean.....

Once again though, no damage to anything, which surprised me. I was expecting to find tweeter diaphragms plastered to the wall. I guess i'm just lucky. That, or stupid : ) Sean
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