Hi-Fi Cock-ups. What's Your Biggest Disaster?

[Scooby]

A long drive to get some new speakers. Get them home, take off the grilles and place them carefully on the sofa. Wire the speakers in and then sit back to listen....... Snapping the grilles in half. Doh!

[RobbieGong]

I used to DJ back in the early 1990's, a venue I played at had ceiling 'swing mounted' deck platform (swing being a platform of wood on chains to the ceiling) on it, 2 x Technics SL-1200s and a mixer in the middle. The DJ booth was up high from the dance floor...

Half way through the evening pretty worse for wear on very Exotic Woodbines and Alcohol, I bent down to sort some records out, on straightening up managed to upend the swing platform with my shoulder and the resulting two Technics SL-1200s and a mixer ended up 15ft below on the dance floor in what can only be described as a ferkin' chaotic mess. Everything had literally exploded into a million pieces on impact.
I kid you not it looked like a Modern Art installation!

My short lived DJ career never recovered!

[sumday]

The end of a short career as a ahem...speaker designer were my much modded IMF speakers.
I think the model was TLS 80 or summat close. Biggish transmission line, four way using a Kef b200 and Coles supertweeters along with others.

The speakers were recovered from a family friends shed!!!! and in a bad way.
All the drivers were shot and the cabs rough but in sound shape.

I pondered returning them to stock but drivers were hard to find and my finances were limited.
So I embarked upon a radical revision.

My model had the drivers built onto a seperate baffle glued into the cab so after much levearing and grunting I was able to remove the baffle and crossover.

I spent many hours sanding and oiling the cabs and they looked superb...painted the fronts matte black and cut a new baffle blank.

But what to fit??
By chance I happened on a pair of large magnet B200s in a second hand stereo shop along with a pair of audax cloth tweeters.....so new 2 way they would be.
I cut the baffle and installed the drivers along with some old xovers I had knocking about.

I thought they looked pretty Damn good but upon firing them up I was pretty shocked......they sounded SHIT.

No bass to speak of, muddy and with a top end that could scare cats.....

I could have cried.

[Tim]

joining AoS

[Pieoftheday]

Using headphones while drunk,trod on the cable and snapped the adapter leaving it in the amp, took ages to get it out, I've done this twice. I only really use headphones when tother half's having an early night

[walpurgis]

Using headphones while drunk,trod on the cable and snapped the adapter leaving it in the amp, took ages to get it out, I've done this twice. I only really use headphones when tother half's having an early night

I'd say you need some wireless 'phones mate.

[Pieoftheday]

I'd say you need some wireless 'phones mate.

Or drink a bit less? Oh no that's daft

[Pigmy Pony]

I once threw up on my amplifier, and it went in through the vents on the top. When I finally plucked up the courage to turn it on a few days later, everything worked, but it gave off a smell like the bottom of a wheely bin.

Put me right off Chinese food, and 40 years later, I'm still not keen.

[walpurgis]

I once threw up on my amplifier

It's just one thing after another.

[sumday]

My dad had a cat which had a habit of sleeping on top of his quite expensive Panasonic VCR.
This brute of a machine cost over 600 quid in the early 90s...a huge amount and even in standby was the warmest perch in his unmodernised terrace home.
It stayed in standby....and hence stayed warm when the moggy decided to piss its bed.

My dad said the smell, when he returned from work many hours later, was beyond description....and lingered in the house for days.

The insurance did not cover it.