Anton S
Senior Member
I noticed when I fired up my main system last week what resembled the “scratchy” overtones that a bad cap in one of my signal chain components can impart to music. Those of you who have heard this sort of distortion know how irritating it always is. This precipitated nearly 2 full days of troubleshooting to ferret out the culprit. One by one, I ruled out suspects until, by the afternoon of the second day, I had zeroed in on my pre-pro as the offending component. My determination was based on these key observations:
After a late-breaking moment of epiphany, this made complete sense to me. I had spent the three days prior to first hearing the distortion in our garage, rebuilding the front suspension of our old SUV. That effort had been accompanied by the periodic cycling of my air compressor and the intermittent clanging of a 3-lb. sledge hammer on various frame and suspension parts that had at times left my ears ringing.
As usual, a pair of earplugs were hanging from a lanyard around my neck, but I couldn’t understand what a very soft-spoken friend who was helping with the project was saying when they were inserted, so I quit using them fairly quickly. Foolish mistake, and I had to accept the notion that my hearing had been compromised, at least temporarily, by those festivities.
Thankfully, my hearing has gradually improved again over the past couple of days, and I am now nearly fully recovered. Just some slight residual static in one ear that will hopefully subside completely in the next day or two.
This wasn’t the first time I’ve gone round and round chasing my own tail over a system problem that wasn't real. At least, this time there actually was an issue, just not with the equipment, so I don’t feel quite so silly ... But I am curious. Who else here has wasted time chasing after an "equipment issue" that turned out to be something else entirely? Who among you has tumbled down a similar rabbit hole chasing after a non-existent system issue?
- The distortion remained clearly audible across all of my source components.
- The distortion was audible across speakers driven by different amplifiers.
After a late-breaking moment of epiphany, this made complete sense to me. I had spent the three days prior to first hearing the distortion in our garage, rebuilding the front suspension of our old SUV. That effort had been accompanied by the periodic cycling of my air compressor and the intermittent clanging of a 3-lb. sledge hammer on various frame and suspension parts that had at times left my ears ringing.
As usual, a pair of earplugs were hanging from a lanyard around my neck, but I couldn’t understand what a very soft-spoken friend who was helping with the project was saying when they were inserted, so I quit using them fairly quickly. Foolish mistake, and I had to accept the notion that my hearing had been compromised, at least temporarily, by those festivities.
Thankfully, my hearing has gradually improved again over the past couple of days, and I am now nearly fully recovered. Just some slight residual static in one ear that will hopefully subside completely in the next day or two.
This wasn’t the first time I’ve gone round and round chasing my own tail over a system problem that wasn't real. At least, this time there actually was an issue, just not with the equipment, so I don’t feel quite so silly ... But I am curious. Who else here has wasted time chasing after an "equipment issue" that turned out to be something else entirely? Who among you has tumbled down a similar rabbit hole chasing after a non-existent system issue?
