what the _____

i bought a used dynavector karet (17?) here on a-gon quite a while back. had it a couple months before mounting it. well, finally mounting it, i had everything done, ready-to-go, & when putting the tonearm lock into its position to awoid damage when carrying the 'table back to its rack, i knocked the arm across the platter, & the stylus /shaft went flying, never to be seen again! aaarrrrgggghh!

i bought a symphonic-line re-tipped lyra clavis recently, it still sits in its box. i really *do* like my current ortofon mc-25fl, but i wonder how much my experience w/the dynavector is delaying my mounting the gnu cartridge... ;~) i bet most mishaps are to cartridges, due to their fragile nature... my wife destroyed the stylus shaft of my sumiko blue-point two days after i had received the ortofon, so i told her she shouldn't feel too bad - it was on its last legs anyways. i still have a nos blue-point sittin' in the box, never mounted, *yust-in-case*!

regards, doug

David, and anyone else out there with similar stories. I'm working on an audiophile sculpture and need broken worthless parts. (I've done quite a few "music" theme paintings--but no sculptures) A tonearm is one of the things I need. If you still have it--can I have it. I don't care if it's snapped in half for what I am working on. If anyone has any interesting parts for this sculpture I would greatly appreciate it--and of course would pay any shipping. Please e-mail me if you have anything. I will send digital photographs of the final work to anyone that contributes. This work is for my own personal enjoyment--there is no monetary gain for me. Thanks Richard

I used to have a small active PA system, including a crossover and two stacks of three Carver power amps. To make everything simple, I used TRS cables for everything... Speakers, interconnects, you name it. (Hey, I was young..)

Friends would love to help set this stuff up and break it down, most of them knew what to do and what not to do. As it turned out, at least one did not.

Connecting the input jack of a Carver amp to a speaker's input turns out to just not do anything at all, just like you probably would expect. Needless to say, I was very surprised when I turned the amp racks on and did not hear the signature POP and Hisssss sounds from my speakers.

These amps had little meters on the front, with a couple of green, one yellow and one red Clip LED. When that Clip LED came on, well, usually it was to the rhythem of the beats as "the party was hot and the bass was pumpin'" like we used to say. Looking at my amps a second or so after hearing the realays click, and not hearing the POP and Hissss, I noticed all amps had the Clip LED on solid...

the brain had just enough time to get to the signature "Uh" beginning of "Uh-oh..." when my ears were greated with a whole different POP, much louder than normal, and the hissing that followed sounded different too....

Turning around, I was greated by smoke from the crossover and equalizers. The EQ's still looked normal, lights on and all. The crossover was in bad state, it turned out it had actually caught on fire, caps had been blown out and the whole thing was mangled badly, found some parts smoking 10 feet away from the thing.

Now for the most amazing thing... The Carver amps self-protected and lived. The crossover and EQ blew up, but the 'Sonic maximizer', mixer and other stuff I head upstream all lived.

Friend in question claimed it was not his fault. After all, this wouldn't have happened if I had not turned the power on! My friend lived too, barely...

Niels.