Gear Problems that actually weren't a problem with the gear.

[RickNRoll]

Times you thought the gear was faulty but it turns out there was nothing wrong with it. I've had a few and it usually turned out to be a matter doing some diagnostics and a studious RTFM.

 

[fpitas]

Sort of embarrassing. The level of one horn was varying. I blamed the DCX2496, to the point it got replaced with an RCF DX-2006. Turns out it was a loose connection On the bright side I like the RCF unit better.

 

[Curvature]

I can't remember any exact stories, but I've fooled myself many times working the wrong channel when mixing.

 

[AdamG]

So many I lost count. Spiked when AVR’s became computers and HDMI became the connection standard for Video & Audio. If you had one setting wrong no picture and no sound or sound and no picture or vise versa. Assignable inputs was a bloody nightmare and a blessing once you went to advanced AVR Post Grad Studies. Still have handshake failures to this very day. I will admit to smashing a practically brand new AVR into scrap in my garage. I still have some of the parts laying around in those containers we toss all the old cables, chargers, and interconnects. We all have at least one bin overflowing with this crap.

I can’t be alone

 

[MaxwellsEq]

I couldn't get a professional tape machine to meet specifications. A colleague spotted it had been shipped with NAB not IEC recording cards!

 

[monkeyboy]

I changed linux variants and was having a channel with low volume...long story short, I screwed up the balance setting, but when looking to check it, the dialog was opening smaller than the controls, so I couldn't find the control...I ended up contacting topping thinking it was a DAC issue...topping was great by the way!

 

[RickNRoll]

My Genelecs were sounding way more noisy than usual. What's wrong with them? The Focusrite Scarlett somehow got to peak volume and what I was hearing was the Scarlett noise. The Genelecs were fine.

 

[Zensō]

I thought the volume of my studio monitors was not balanced left and right. It turns out I had a blockage in one of my ears (resolved now).

 

[concorde1]

1. There was bass distortion at certain frequencies from my current speakers. It was bugging me for a long time. It turned out they just needed to be isolated better. I put some cloth / bubble wrap beneath them and they are fine now.

2. One of my headphones, the Audeze LCD-3 2021, I couldn't get to sound right with any EQ profiles. Then a long time later I found out they sound great with no EQ.

 

[Mart68]

twenty minutes trying to get brand new amp to power up (I even resorted to RTFM) only to discover the mains block it was plugged into was not switched on at the wall.

No signal from barely used Oppo player only to discover I'd swapped the HDMI lead into a games console some months previously and forgot to swap it back

Intermittently terrible sound from some vintage speakers, swapped speaker cables about five times then found out there was loose connections on both crossovers. The effect varied with volume, I thought I was hearing cable burn in.

And many similar doozies over the years.