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Cats and Audio Gear Don't Mix or Can You Forgive Your Cat

VMAT4

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So, a day or so ago, one of my cats decided to mark my Linkwitz Audio Speakerbox. It shorted out. It's kaput. I hooked up a WiiM Amp and some old Airmotiv T1 speakers too replace the Linkwitz Sirius+2 setup. All is fine now. The cat is forgiven! And, he'll have a tough time pissing into the WiiM Amp.

Anybody been through this also?
 
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In the Linkwitz web site what model is yours?
 
Generally speaking I don't find cats tend to mark anything that's not on or near the floor (and/or in an enclosure), so none of my electronics are exposed that way. Also, it's rather difficult for them to do anything to in-wall speakers, another benefit of my new system.
 
In the Linkwitz web site what model is yours?
Here ya go: Linkwitz Store.
 
Anybody been through this also?
Not with cats but our poppy dogs chewed through one of my first high-fi system speaker cables. And then they started to chew the speakers themselves! I think they "marked" the carpet in front of them but not on the speakers themselves thankfully.
 
If the alternative is throwing the amp away, I’d wash it with distilled water.
 
1738971105794.png


Incredible!
 
So, a day or so ago, one of my cats decided to mark my Linkwitz Audio Speakerbox...
We have apparently been adopted by a free-range neighborhood cat. Not knowing what his real name (if he has one) might be, we call him "Mark".

I bet you can guess why.
 
Had a cat for 3 years, and had no issues with him. When he died last fall we picked up two kittens. One of them (now 6+ months old) has decided she likes to climb the retired Von Schweikerts, which pull down on of the 'socks' a couple inches. Should be easy enough to reattach, just need to pull off the wood end cover. The problem is she then hops over on top of a Salon 2. And a close inspection revealed a few pulls in the fabric cover. More of a 'first world problem; than anything else.

And yesterday her brother stretched upwards and started grabbing the fabric/ grill of my son's Wharfdale bookshelf speakers. So it looks like these siblings will be making up for our first cat leaving everything alone. Hmmm, not that I think about it, the first cat liked to walk across/ sit on the Bryston amp. And a couple times he 'marked' the speaker cable coil next to it... It took a bit to get him to stay away form the equipment. And of course the two cats we have now both like hanging out on the amp and speaker wire coil...

All well worth it.
 
Had a cat for 3 years, and had no issues with him. When he died last fall we picked up two kittens. One of them (now 6+ months old) has decided she likes to climb the retired Von Schweikerts, which pull down on of the 'socks' a couple inches. Should be easy enough to reattach, just need to pull off the wood end cover. The problem is she then hops over on top of a Salon 2. And a close inspection revealed a few pulls in the fabric cover. More of a 'first world problem; than anything else.

And yesterday her brother stretched upwards and started grabbing the fabric/ grill of my son's Wharfdale bookshelf speakers. So it looks like these siblings will be making up for our first cat leaving everything alone. Hmmm, not that I think about it, the first cat liked to walk across/ sit on the Bryston amp. And a couple times he 'marked' the speaker cable coil next to it... It took a bit to get him to stay away form the equipment. And of course the two cats we have now both like hanging out on the amp and speaker wire coil...

All well worth it.
Cat lover! They have you wrapped up.
 
Never had cats pee outside of their litter box indoors, but clawing speakers many years ago me my gf had a pair that climbed my snell EII , and ripped the suspension of the woofers.

We designed special cat protection to put on when we where not home :)
 
Sorry for your loss. I'm a dog person, so I am biased.

Many people would say that cats try to get in the way of anything that distracts owners from sole focus on the cat themselves.

I posted this as a gift link in humor. I think they expire after 30 days? So reposting as text. Maybe her book can help?

Carole Wilbourn, Who Put Cats on the Couch, Dies at 84​

When cats bite or scratch, they’re trying to tell you something. Ms. Wilbourn, a cat therapist, was a pioneer in the art of listening to them.


Listen to this article · 5:11 min Learn more


A woman with shoulder-length brown hair leans toward a gray cat. She is looking at him and the cat is looking straight ahead.

Carole Wilbourn, a pioneer in feline psychotherapy, having a session with a troubled cat named Finn in 2014. She said she had treated some 13,000 cats.
By Penelope Green
Jan. 8, 2025
Carole Wilbourn, a self-described cat therapist, who was known for her skill in decoding the emotional life of cats, as confounding as that would seem to be, died on Dec. 23 at her home in Manhattan. She was 84.
Her death was confirmed by her sister Gail Mutrux.
Ms. Wilbourn’s patients shredded sofas, toilet paper and romantic partners. They soiled rugs and beds. They galloped over their sleeping humans in the wee hours. They hissed at babies, dogs and other cats. They chewed electrical wires. They sulked in closets and went on hunger strikes.
They suffered from childhood trauma, low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, jealousy and just plain rage. And Ms. Wilbourn, who was self-taught — in college she had studied (human) psychology and majored in education — seemed particularly attuned to the inner workings of their furry minds. A minor Manhattan celebrity, she was often called the kitty Freud, or the mother of cat psychiatry.
Cats hate change, she often noted. Even a new slipcover on the sofa can undo them. Cats are selfish. Unlike dogs, who strive to please their masters, a cat strives to please itself. To mangle a cliché, happy cat, happy (human) life.


“A cat behaves badly when it’s trying to communicate,” Ms. Wilbourn told The Los Angeles Daily News in 1990. “It’s sending an SOS. It’s saying, ‘Please help me.’”
Ms. Wilbourn developed her specialty over a half-century after founding The Cat Practice, billed as Manhattan’s first cats-only hospital, in 1973 with Paul Rowan, a veterinarian. She said she was the first feline therapist in the country, a claim that is not known to have been disputed.
She was the author of six books, including “Cats on the Couch” (first published in 1982), which offered case studies to help cat lovers better understand their furry friends. She treated patients as far away as Australia and Turkey (by phone), and made house calls as far away as Maui.
“Cats have emotions,” she said. “They get happy and sad and frustrated, and, since I understand emotions in people, I understand them in cats.”


Image
A black-and-white photo of a man with long, sandy hair and wire-rimmed glasses, and a woman with long, dark hair and a nurse’s cap, both wearing white lab coats, examining a black cat. Behind them, another cat watches from on top of a high shelf.

Ms. Wilbourn and Dr. Rowan examining a patient in 1974. Their clinic, The Cat Practice, was said to be one of the first cat-only hospitals in the country.Credit...Bill Aller/The New York Times
Ms. Wilbourn estimated that she had treated 13,000 cats and claimed a success rate of 75 to 80 percent. Take Snoopy, who didn’t like to be held and played rough when he was, and who ran around in circles if he was over-excited. Sobriety, a 3-year-old tabby, scratched her own skin raw. Minina bit all visitors and had to be locked away during dinner parties. Ms. Wilbourn’s diagnosis? Single cat syndrome. The treatment? Another cat, preferably a kitten; lots of attention, but not to the kitten; and, in Sobriety’s case, Valium.


Ms. Wilbourn once treated a cat with Reiki energy-healing therapy after it had accidentally been run through the dryer.
Her go-to prescriptions also included New Age and classical music, recordings of whale songs and an abundance of treats, like catnip (a natural antidepressant, she pointed out). She also suggested canny behavior modifications by the humans in a cat’s life, like having a new romantic partner feed it.
She often recommended, in the days of landlines and answering machines, that humans call their pets and leave them cheerful messages. Her services did not come cheap: House-visits in Manhattan hovered at $400.
“If I lived anywhere besides a big city like New York,” she told The New York Times in 2004, “I’d be on food stamps.”
Image
The cover of a book with the title “The Inner Cat: A New Approach to Cat Behavior,” on a yellow background, above a photograph of two cats nuzzling each other.

Ms. Wilbourn was the author of six books, including “The Inner Cat: A New Approach to Cat Behavior.”Credit...Stein & Day Pub


Carole Cecile Engel was born on March 19, 1940, in the Flushing section of Queens, one of four children of Harriet (Greenwald) and Gustave Engel, a taxi driver. There were no cats in their Queens apartment, but the family did have a canary named Petey.
Carole graduated from Bayside High School and attended the State University of New York at Albany (now the University at Albany), before transferring to New York University, where she studied psychology and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business education in 1964.
Image
A black and white photo of a woman sitting on a sofa and holding a Siamese cat while smiling and looking off to the side.

Ms. Wilbourn in 2016 with Orion 2, who survives her.Credit...Thomas Northcut
Her first cat was a part-Siamese named Oliver, whom she adopted through an ad in The Village Voice. She was working as a substitute teacher and a Playboy bunny before opening The Cat Practice with Dr. Rowan, whom she later married.
“She was very attuned to the animals, to their emotional states,” Dr. Rowan said in an interview. “It was very unusual for the time.” As a result, their business flourished.
An earlier marriage, to David Wilbourn, a photographer, ended in divorce, as did her marriage to Dr. Rowan. In addition to Ms. Mutrux, her sister, she is survived by Orion 2, a Siamese.


Ms. Wilbourn was a dog lover, too, and on occasion treated canines, though she never had a dog herself. But she had definite views about anti-cat people. In her experience, she said, some of those who claimed they were allergic to cats often just didn’t like them.
“A cat is a free spirit and will not be subservient,” she wrote in “The Inner Cat” (1978). “People who derive their gratification from giving commands that others must obey can be threatened by a cat. It’s hard to assert your sense of power over a cat.”
 
Sorry for your loss. I'm a dog person, so I am biased.

Many people would say that cats try to get in the way of anything that distracts owners from sole focus on the cat themselves.

I posted this as a gift link in humor. I think they expire after 30 days? So reposting as text. Maybe her book can help?

Carole Wilbourn, Who Put Cats on the Couch, Dies at 84​

When cats bite or scratch, they’re trying to tell you something. Ms. Wilbourn, a cat therapist, was a pioneer in the art of listening to them.


Listen to this article · 5:11 min Learn more


A woman with shoulder-length brown hair leans toward a gray cat. She is looking at him and the cat is looking straight ahead.

Carole Wilbourn, a pioneer in feline psychotherapy, having a session with a troubled cat named Finn in 2014. She said she had treated some 13,000 cats.
By Penelope Green
Jan. 8, 2025
Carole Wilbourn, a self-described cat therapist, who was known for her skill in decoding the emotional life of cats, as confounding as that would seem to be, died on Dec. 23 at her home in Manhattan. She was 84.
Her death was confirmed by her sister Gail Mutrux.
Ms. Wilbourn’s patients shredded sofas, toilet paper and romantic partners. They soiled rugs and beds. They galloped over their sleeping humans in the wee hours. They hissed at babies, dogs and other cats. They chewed electrical wires. They sulked in closets and went on hunger strikes.
They suffered from childhood trauma, low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, jealousy and just plain rage. And Ms. Wilbourn, who was self-taught — in college she had studied (human) psychology and majored in education — seemed particularly attuned to the inner workings of their furry minds. A minor Manhattan celebrity, she was often called the kitty Freud, or the mother of cat psychiatry.
Cats hate change, she often noted. Even a new slipcover on the sofa can undo them. Cats are selfish. Unlike dogs, who strive to please their masters, a cat strives to please itself. To mangle a cliché, happy cat, happy (human) life.


“A cat behaves badly when it’s trying to communicate,” Ms. Wilbourn told The Los Angeles Daily News in 1990. “It’s sending an SOS. It’s saying, ‘Please help me.’”
Ms. Wilbourn developed her specialty over a half-century after founding The Cat Practice, billed as Manhattan’s first cats-only hospital, in 1973 with Paul Rowan, a veterinarian. She said she was the first feline therapist in the country, a claim that is not known to have been disputed.
She was the author of six books, including “Cats on the Couch” (first published in 1982), which offered case studies to help cat lovers better understand their furry friends. She treated patients as far away as Australia and Turkey (by phone), and made house calls as far away as Maui.
“Cats have emotions,” she said. “They get happy and sad and frustrated, and, since I understand emotions in people, I understand them in cats.”


Image
A black-and-white photo of a man with long, sandy hair and wire-rimmed glasses, and a woman with long, dark hair and a nurse’s cap, both wearing white lab coats, examining a black cat. Behind them, another cat watches from on top of a high shelf.

Ms. Wilbourn and Dr. Rowan examining a patient in 1974. Their clinic, The Cat Practice, was said to be one of the first cat-only hospitals in the country.Credit...Bill Aller/The New York Times
Ms. Wilbourn estimated that she had treated 13,000 cats and claimed a success rate of 75 to 80 percent. Take Snoopy, who didn’t like to be held and played rough when he was, and who ran around in circles if he was over-excited. Sobriety, a 3-year-old tabby, scratched her own skin raw. Minina bit all visitors and had to be locked away during dinner parties. Ms. Wilbourn’s diagnosis? Single cat syndrome. The treatment? Another cat, preferably a kitten; lots of attention, but not to the kitten; and, in Sobriety’s case, Valium.


Ms. Wilbourn once treated a cat with Reiki energy-healing therapy after it had accidentally been run through the dryer.
Her go-to prescriptions also included New Age and classical music, recordings of whale songs and an abundance of treats, like catnip (a natural antidepressant, she pointed out). She also suggested canny behavior modifications by the humans in a cat’s life, like having a new romantic partner feed it.
She often recommended, in the days of landlines and answering machines, that humans call their pets and leave them cheerful messages. Her services did not come cheap: House-visits in Manhattan hovered at $400.
“If I lived anywhere besides a big city like New York,” she told The New York Times in 2004, “I’d be on food stamps.”
Image
The cover of a book with the title “The Inner Cat: A New Approach to Cat Behavior,” on a yellow background, above a photograph of two cats nuzzling each other.

Ms. Wilbourn was the author of six books, including “The Inner Cat: A New Approach to Cat Behavior.”Credit...Stein & Day Pub


Carole Cecile Engel was born on March 19, 1940, in the Flushing section of Queens, one of four children of Harriet (Greenwald) and Gustave Engel, a taxi driver. There were no cats in their Queens apartment, but the family did have a canary named Petey.
Carole graduated from Bayside High School and attended the State University of New York at Albany (now the University at Albany), before transferring to New York University, where she studied psychology and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business education in 1964.
Image
A black and white photo of a woman sitting on a sofa and holding a Siamese cat while smiling and looking off to the side.

Ms. Wilbourn in 2016 with Orion 2, who survives her.Credit...Thomas Northcut
Her first cat was a part-Siamese named Oliver, whom she adopted through an ad in The Village Voice. She was working as a substitute teacher and a Playboy bunny before opening The Cat Practice with Dr. Rowan, whom she later married.
“She was very attuned to the animals, to their emotional states,” Dr. Rowan said in an interview. “It was very unusual for the time.” As a result, their business flourished.
An earlier marriage, to David Wilbourn, a photographer, ended in divorce, as did her marriage to Dr. Rowan. In addition to Ms. Mutrux, her sister, she is survived by Orion 2, a Siamese.


Ms. Wilbourn was a dog lover, too, and on occasion treated canines, though she never had a dog herself. But she had definite views about anti-cat people. In her experience, she said, some of those who claimed they were allergic to cats often just didn’t like them.
“A cat is a free spirit and will not be subservient,” she wrote in “The Inner Cat” (1978). “People who derive their gratification from giving commands that others must obey can be threatened by a cat. It’s hard to assert your sense of power over a cat.”
She was correct. Only New York. Really doesn't take much to train a cat. Just your voice. On the other hand, used to show English Bulldogs. Taser wouldn't work with those bone heads.
 
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