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OK, you are not really an audiophile if you haven't done this:........... (fun thread)

rwortman

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Broke the cantilever on a brand new Adcom cartridge before I played one track. (drinking involved)

Thought my new home made speaker wires had an astounding effect on bass response before I noticed the loudness button pushed in on my preamp.

Bought a bargain audio component that was enthusiastically recommended by a famous reviewer and sold the "non-audiophile" component it replaced only to find that the new one was a poorly made piece of junk and that the old one was worth 10X what I sold it for on the used market. (pre-internet explosion)

Put new stereo systems in every car I bought within the first week of ownership up until the 2000's when OEM stuff started having acceptable sound.

Spent way too much energy arguing with idiots on audio forums.
 

egellings

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Amp smell: I like to snort the holes where the wires come out on the bottom of my output transformers. Oooh! So addictive!
 

egellings

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Thanks for the good advice! I won't--I'll just enjoy the transformers.
 

GD Fan

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Obsessively researching new equipment upgrades a week after the last upgrades...
 

mhardy6647

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Pro tip:

Don't google smelly holes
especially, I would think "+ trannys"

:rolleyes:

(folks my age still tend to refer to transformers as trannys -- good judgment notwithstanding)

of course, 'we' also call these diagonal cutters...

1583197487835.png


dykes.

:facepalm:
 

Sal1950

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tomtoo

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Tried to get 4*6mm^2 Speakerkabels under a carped boarder. Than thought who the fu** needs carped boarders.
 

Jake's Dad

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In order to adjust and measure my Thorens TD125mkII from below i used 4 full cans of dr.Pepper to raise it up for access. The 40 pound unit fell and one can of soda ripped open and exploded into the electronics and motor assembly.....

Rinsed an cleaned with vodka and let it dry. Still works fine after 45 years...

What brand of vodka?
 

fitero

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I built a pair of big speakers from Speakerbuilder magazine in 1988, and was playing them for some stereo friends. Of course it was a Telarc record of the 1812 Overture. One of my buddys was sitting in the sweet spot with his eyes closed, enraptured by the music. When the cannon shots erupted from the speakers, two things happened; the buddy in the chair instantly curled into the fetal position as quickly as an armadillo, and the 3" fringes of the oriental carpet that were a foot or so away from the speaker ports got blown back onto the carpet at all 4 locations. This story still elicits giggles from my stereo friends.

If I tell this story to non stereo friends they look at me as cows look at trains.
 

Koeitje

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I built a pair of big speakers from Speakerbuilder magazine in 1988, and was playing them for some stereo friends. Of course it was a Telarc record of the 1812 Overture. One of my buddys was sitting in the sweet spot with his eyes closed, enraptured by the music. When the cannon shots erupted from the speakers, two things happened; the buddy in the chair instantly curled into the fetal position as quickly as an armadillo, and the 3" fringes of the oriental carpet that were a foot or so away from the speaker ports got blown back onto the carpet at all 4 locations. This story still elicits giggles from my stereo friends.

If I tell this story to non stereo friends they look at me as cows look at trains.
Telarc's 1812 Overture is one of the few pieces I'm really scared about playing loud.
 

cjfrbw

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Cleaning lady and stylus destruction, like trailer parks and tornados, they are mutual attractants. They seem to be fascinated, and use cleaning as an excuse to look closer, or, they think its a contaminant that needs to be cleaned.

I told cleaning people to stay out of my audio room completely, I would take care of it. Of course, they didn't. One spritzed my foil tweeter with cleaner and knocked it off its stand. I spent an hour taking it apart and cleaning out all the metal filings that fell into the magnet from whatever the solution did to the thing. It still works.

After that, I locked my audio room closed whenever they were to come over to clean.
 

Sal1950

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Jake's Dad

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Guys,

I belatedly came upon this thread while stuck at home today during the Great Covid-19 Shut-In of 2020. I want to thank each and everyone of those who contributed or commented for the laughter and profound sense of shared humanity that reading this thread has given me. I laughed literally till tears were streaming down my cheeks. I was laughing so loudly behind my study door that my wife ran in to check if I was having (a) a mini-stroke, (b) a heart attack, or (c) an sudden onset of Covid-19. I didn't have any of these. I was laughing till I couldn't hardly breath because her engagement ring only cost about what my speakers (throwing in the sub) cost. That's the shared humanity part -- I've made soooo many of these mistakes over the years -- so it was incredibly reassuring that so many of you, so many so much better qualified in all things audio, have been up to the same nonsense.

So, thank you, most sincerely, Jake's Dad.

P.S. And a special shout-out to @restorer-john for getting the thread rolling, as well as @Blumlein 88, @DonH56, @MattHooper, @ripvw, @Wombat and @watchnerd for some truly epic, world-class, spare no expense, craziness!

P.P.S. I'm surprised no one else mentioned going to Home Depot and making the guy in garden department open 5 different bags of sand to make sure the grains were as fine as possible. How could this matter, you ask? So the ballast in the bottom of my Totems would be packed as tightly as possible.
 
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