Access/Use Restrictions-Listening Room

What a great thread Angela! I don't use housecleanerpersons because I am such a perfectionist that there is no one in the world who can clean my house like I can! Yep, that's right I'm the maid in my mansion. This works good because my wife does the cooking (god forbid you hand the spatula to me)and I do 90% of the cleaning. This also serves to protect the Stereo equipment from over zealous scrubbers and lint collectors. I have to devote separate time to primping and grooming the stereo. I usually do this last after the floors are vacumed (stirs up more dust)and the kitchen and bathroom floors mopped. In a way I find it a nice come-down from the main cleaning. I have to be relaxed and not hurried. I previously had my Epos ES12,s mounted on stands without any adhesive between stand and spk. Big mistake. One day while cleaning the windows I wasn't paying attention when stepping back to admire my work and slightly bumped the stand. Had I not whirled around in such a panic to see what I had done, the speaker most likely would have remained on the stand. But, because of my paniced-whirling I sent the speaker crashing to the floor. Tears.....Oh, well. I had quit smoking for about a month, but the disaster was to much to take. 2 small dents now graced the veneered side of my previously "new" speaker! Well, you can pretty much guess...that ended the stopped-smoking routine. I immediately went and purchased an entire carton of cigs and proceeded to smoke them. I have since found the audio miracle blu-tak which will hopefully help me avoid this kind of thing again. If only I had known of this stuff, my spk might have remained on the stand. The other lesson is...Don't screw around, clean around, hang around, etc. by the stereo!!! This is my only rule and it's mainly needed for protection from people like myself. Natural born clutz!

Same rule. Housecleaner not allowed. All clening in listening room done by yours truly. Siamese cats (I have 3) allowed only when I'm there...otherwise they sit on the BAT preamp (it's warm!). Worst moment...female Siamese cat trying to clear hairball from throat right on top of BAT preamp. I beat her to the punch..by a fraction of a second. For the most part, the cats behave..and they are impossible to keep out of the room in the Winter (all the tubed gear makes it nice and toasty after a couple of hours)

Yesterday we had a sonic boom in LA. At the same time that I heard the boom, I also heard a clunk from the stereo cabinet (the DAC had toppled from its cone points and landed a sixteenth of an inch from a digital microwire that I recently purchased. Well last night I ordered a "real" equipment rack from Audio Advisor and plan to use the Neuance shelves that fellow member RedKiwi has had such positive results with. The Neuance is said to work best with just the components resting on their stock feet, and I will be doing away with all of my wonderfull and precarious cone points. The equipment is also being relocated to a hall closet just off the living room. This was going to be a long term project, which included me building my own rack from scratch, but now it seems that it will be completed as soon as I can justify the expense of two of the Neuance shelves (to start) with my wife. I think that I will start tonight, with a couple of rib-eyes and some creamed spinach (with pearl onions:-) I suppose that I should tell her about the rack that I purchsed as well since it will probably arrive early next week. Now that I use CD's as a source any of our guests are welcome to use the stereo rig. Before when I used vinyl, only a chosen few were allowed to operate my system. We did use a cleaner for a while when I was completely disabled, but coming from a blue collar background it felt kind of funny having someone do my own "chores", plus I was home while he was doing them. The guy (Aurturo) though was great with all of the fragile things that we have (much better than I am) and still works for a neighbor of ours.

i have two grown sons with keys to our home, each of whom frequently drop by whilst my spouse and i are away for an hour or absent for a week. they are welcome to use my audio system under these ukases: (1) you break it or damage it, you pay for it's repair or replacement, NOW; (2) you play it, you put it back where you found it; (3) you borrow it, you leave me a note--no note, i find out, i get 2 for 1 of yours, my choice; (4) you drink my beer, clean up your mess; (5) you drink my wine, you'd better figure out how to buy me a better bottle. our housekeeper is allowed to vacuum the carpets and rug in my soundroom and dust around my listening area but may not get close to the speakers or electronics. sometimes my cobwebs get their own cobwebs before i notice and clean them. BTW, anybody ever found a cob redhandedly makin' those webs?

the only problem i've had w/the stereo is my two children, now ages 9 & 5. once, when there was only one, she grabbed the wolume knob & gave it a full clockwise twist. my wife, in the room at the time took the full brunt of it. i was in the next room, so *my* ears were only sore for a couple days... ;~) dunno what my dawtah's ears thought of it!

she also knocked over one of the theil 3.5's, which happened to have its fall cushioned by a cheapie plastic table, which sacrificed itself for the good of the speaker - only a tiny dime-sized hole in the side of the grille-cloth.

my current monitors are stand-mounted - on 3 ball-bearings! w/kids, this is *asking* for trouble! well, the dawtah got one of 'em once, & the son got 'em twice. fortunately, no kid-damage, only a few chips on the back-edge of one of 'em. good thing these tings are built like mini-tanks. also a good ting the youngest, is at age 5 now - it's been almost two years since any speaker-jumping has ocurred chez-sedon. both kids can operate everything except the turntable - i tink the dawtah could do that, if she could reach it! :>)

of course, no one cleans the stereo, (except me, once in a while!); the only real rule is: NO PLAYING AROUND THE SPEAKERS!!!!!! :>)

regards, doug