Hi-fi destruction!!!

[Neuphonix]

Following on from todays threads I thought it would be great to hear if anyone had some interesting stories to share regarding equipment failure / malfunction or general destruction bought about by dark forces beyond your control!

I once owned a big set of Cerwin Vegas which I had loved and cherished for a number of years. My partner at the time decided to add a frisky pair of kittens to our household (not my cup of tea, but what can you do).

Came out into the lounge room one morning to discover that they had learnt to jump up onto the speaker covers & grab on with their claws & hang on. Sure enough after doing this for however long surprise surprise the cover fell off to reveal a lovely soft 15" driver.

Not content to leave it there, they then proceeded to shred every single bit of both drivers right down to the bone |(

They left the tweeters intact!

I'd probably get banned from the forum if I told you how I reacted, but suffice to say my partner & her kittens parted ways not long after!!!

Still looking at the bright side, what better excuse could you have to go and buy a new set of speakers. My insurance company just laughed at me when I asked if I could claim the damage (worth a try though )

Surely some of you seasoned officianados can better that one?

 

[Hi-FiOutlaw]

Nop...

But I had a Parson Russell Terrier that tore all the bottons from the remote of a Sony TV one by one... Was a Skilled mutt!

Loved is art work...

And love Russell Terriers as well!

 

[steve_1979]

We've just got a new kitten at out house so I always cover the subwoofer up when it's not in use at the moment. If the kitten did manage to damage/destroy it I would feel p****d off but I wouldn't get angry at the kitten. It's just a kitten doing what kittens naturally do.

If people can't except/deal with young animals doing things like scratching stuff or peeing on the carpet which is common at first while you train them how to behave then don't have animals.

 

[John Duncan]

I did once disconnect the laser from a 20-year-old CD player so I could get a new one...

 

[SiUK]

Well, I have had child damaged hi-fi, many moons ago. My son, then aged just below 2, had recently become very mobile. We had moved into our house about 3 months earlier and so a few rooms were still being decorated. The front room had been finished first and the hi-fi, tele etc. (plus new carpet) was all set up. I came down the stairs at about 6:30am and my son was sitting on the bottom step in his jim jams...covered in head to toe in white emulsion paint! I nearly had heart failure seeing him there, but it got worse as the trail of paint led along the hall to the front room, to the hi-fi tables where my record player, ampflier, VHS recorder were, and my precious records (vinyl) alongside. My son had decided that my record player. amp and VHS player needed a paint job and then clearly decided that he'd made a good enough job of them and proceeded to make the records match the kit. But what can you do? A child a step away from 2...he was just being creative My fault for leaving tins of paint lined up along the hallway with a little one around. Don't know how he got the lid off either. Can't have been pushed back on firmly enough. That was one heck of a clean up job, and expensive as well.

 

[jonathanRD]

Some years ago my Mission 780's developed a fault and stopped working. When I took them into my local dealer for repair, they told me there was moisture inside the cabinets and they would need new drive units (£45).

I was furious - when I got home I interrogated the whole family and the cat. One of my suspicions (of great amusement to my family at the time) was that the cat or one of the kids had relieved themselves into the speakers - I just could not work out how moisture could get inside the speakers? In the end I concluded the most likely cause was my son's fog machine which I promptly banned from our dining room.

It was only years later reading this forum that I discovered that the fault may have been a known issue with these speakers.

 

[BigH]

I have 780 SEs, never had a problem with them. Probably was the fog?

 

[jonathanRD]

I have 780 SEs, never had a problem with them. Probably was the fog?

I think the SE's are a later version, but yes I don't think the fog helped.

My son is a dancer - at the time he was about 12 yrs old - he was trying to re-create MJ's Thriller video. When I opened the door into our dining room it was like a sauna.

 

[BigH]

MIne were about 1994 models so yes a bit later if yours were the original 780s.

 

[baltun]

Many years ago I had a pair of Kef Q15, which were positioned on the top of Atacama stands. Right next to one of them was my amp, a Yamaha AX-492, positioned nearly at the floor level.
One day, and despite my instructions not to do so, our housemaid decided to clean the Kefs...
Then she called me and said one of the speakers fell.. right over the Yamaha! She thought the speakers were somehow attached to the stands...
Result: the speaker made a hole on the top of the amp, since it fell right with an edge over it. Both continued to work fine, but the looks suffered.

 

[davedotco]

Following on from todays threads I thought it would be great to hear if anyone had some interesting stories to share regarding equipment failure / malfunction or general destruction bought about by dark forces beyond your control!

I once owned a big set of Cerwin Vegas which I had loved and cherished for a number of years. My partner at the time decided to add a frisky pair of kittens to our household (not my cup of tea, but what can you do).

Came out into the lounge room one morning to discover that they had learnt to jump up onto the speaker covers & grab on with their claws & hang on. Sure enough after doing this for however long surprise surprise the cover fell off to reveal a lovely soft 15" driver.

Not content to leave it there, they then proceeded to shred every single bit of both drivers right down to the bone |(

They left the tweeters intact!

I'd probably get banned from the forum if I told you how I reacted, but suffice to say my partner & her kittens parted ways not long after!!!

Still looking at the bright side, what better excuse could you have to go and buy a new set of speakers. My insurance company just laughed at me when I asked if I could claim the damage (worth a try though )

Surely some of you seasoned officianados can better that one?

As a dealer, I used to have a customer for whom everything went wrong. He was a Naim enthusiast and over time we had sold him a lot of (olive series) boxes. But they all kept going wrong, CDI, NAT01, multiple pre-amps, the lot.

He even had the only complete failure of a HiCap that I have ever seen, He lived in the country out beyond Reading and ended up visiting the factory on numerous occastions, never any problems, conponents were fixed or replaced without question though Naim themselves were mystified, they were seeing repeated faults that they had never seen other than this guy, seriously wierd.

In the end we just decided that he was "psycotoxic", ie his very presence on a regular basis caused Naim equipment to fail, other stuff was fine apparantly....... :?

 

[chebby]

He lived in the country out beyond Reading

Probably lived in a listed cottage with original 1920s vintage mains wiring fed to the house on an overhead cable with a leaky transformer that sparked every time it rained.

 

[davedotco]

He lived in the country out beyond Reading

Probably lived in a listed cottage with original 1920s vintage mains wiring fed to the house on an overhead cable with a leaky transformer that sparked every time it rained.

Nice thought but it was a new build in a village whose name I forget.

Not a million miles from Aldermaston, we did wonder........ :?

 

[CnoEvil]

Jeeeez, I thought you'd blown up the Refs!! :doh:

 

[jamoli]

My first amp was a Creek 4040 S2 which was a fine little amp until one day it billowed smoke out of the back and went bang!

 

[jamoli]

My first amp was a Creek 4040 S2 which was a fine little amp until one day it billowed smoke out of the back and went bang!

 

[Broner]

My bunnies ate my previous speakers. They were particularly fond of the rubber rings around the woofers. Bunnies are not allowed in the room anymore.

 

[chebby]

My bunnies ate my previous speakers. They were particularly fond of the rubber rings around the woofers. Bunnies are not allowed in the room anymore.

You are Hugh Hefner and I claim my £5

 

[Neuphonix]

We've just got a new kitten at out house so I always cover the subwoofer up when it's not in use at the moment. If the kitten did manage to damage/destroy it I would feel p****d off but I wouldn't get angry at the kitten. It's just a kitten doing what kittens naturally do. If people can't except/deal with young animals doing things like scratching stuff or peeing on the carpet which is common at first while you train them how to behave then don't have animals.

You're right of course, but it is easy to rationalise about these things, quite a bit different at 5 in the morning when you're surveying the scene of destruction

I should make it clear that no animals were hurt in the making of this thread

 

[Neuphonix]

Well, I have had child damaged hi-fi, many moons ago. My son, then aged just below 2, had recently become very mobile. We had moved into our house about 3 months earlier and so a few rooms were still being decorated. The front room had been finished first and the hi-fi, tele etc. (plus new carpet) was all set up. I came down the stairs at about 6:30am and my son was sitting on the bottom step in his jim jams...covered in head to toe in white emulsion paint! I nearly had heart failure seeing him there, but it got worse as the trail of paint led along the hall to the front room, to the hi-fi tables where my record player, ampflier, VHS recorder were, and my precious records (vinyl) alongside. My son had decided that my record player. amp and VHS player needed a paint job and then clearly decided that he'd made a good enough job of them and proceeded to make the records match the kit. But what can you do? A child a step away from 2...he was just being creative My fault for leaving tins of paint lined up along the hallway with a little one around. Don't know how he got the lid off either. Can't have been pushed back on firmly enough. That was one heck of a clean up job, and expensive as well.

I would say that this one has gone to number one with a rocket!!! Did you at least get some imcriminating photos for parade at 21st birthday parties etc?

 

[Neuphonix]

I have 780 SEs, never had a problem with them. Probably was the fog?

I think the SE's are a later version, but yes I don't think the fog helped.

My son is a dancer - at the time he was about 12 yrs old - he was trying to re-create MJ's Thriller video. When I opened the door into our dining room it was like a sauna.

As per above comment re the incriminating video!!! Think of the mileage you could get with that one!

 

[Neuphonix]

Jeeeez, I thought you'd blown up the Refs!! :doh:

I thought that might get a reaction

All going fine touch wood.

 

[mikeparker59]

My A&R A60 blew a fuse just a few days before warranty ran out. It came with replacement fuses so I popped another in and it immediately blew. Returned Amp to A&R apparently one of the output transistors was faulty. Repaired under guarantee and the amp has been working ever since, and still gets used a couple of times a month as part of my second system in my study/computer room.

That was 30 odd years ago, I've since renewed the volume pot as the old one was horribly crackly, and all is well again. Even the old capacitors look fine and non leaky unlike the caps in my T21 which are looking distorted but I don't use it that much so will probably not bother re-capping it, esp if FM gets turned off |(

 

[Andrew17321]

Our last cat used to like to sleep on top of my wife's nice warm Rotel amplifier. When she got old, the cat (not my wife, who is forever young) became incontinent and flooded the amplifier through its top vents. It stopped working. After a few days and repeated use of a hair dryer it started playing again. In fact the sound quality had improved noticeably! Twenty years later the amplifier is still working perfectly and the smell has long gone.

For all you guys who like to 'burn in' your amplifiers, can I suggest marinating in cat pee is even more effective!

Andrew

 

[Neuphonix]

Our last cat used to like to sleep on top of my wife's nice warm Rotel amplifier. When she got old, the cat (not my wife, who is forever young) became incontinent and flooded the amplifier through its top vents. It stopped working. After a few days and repeated use of a hair dryer it started playing again. In fact the sound quality had improved noticeably! Twenty years later the amplifier is still working perfectly and the smell has long gone.

For all you guys who like to 'burn in' your amplifiers, can I suggest marinating in cat pee is even more effective!

Andrew

There's got to be some marketing slogan there...... "a more liquid sound.....?"