Tell us about your worst audio equipment disaster ever

[DACslut]

Mine was way back in the day when I use to freelance DJ parties. I was dumb enough for attempting to use home audio equipment for doing the job. About halfway into the gig, I blew a tweeter in one of my 80's era 15" woofer Marantz speakers while using a flagship Realistic receiver to drive them. The receiver ended up repeatedly going into shutdown protection mode.

Luckily the wedding reception party wasn't a total disaster. There happened to be a group of guys at the party who played in a band and they went home lickety split, came back with their equipment and set everything up in less than ten minutes., They wound up playing like pros and saved the day! Because home audio hardware has advanced so much in the past few decades, doing something like this today probably wouldn't be so potentially consequential. I still wouldn't risk attempting it again tho.

 

[Chrispy]

I setup a home-geared system with more amp than needed for general use in a commercial environment that I shouldn't have.....someone turned it up to 11 and fried the ribbons (on Carver Amazing Speakers). Lesson learned.

 

[Mart68]

muted the A/V system to answer telephone. Finished call, forgot I had muted and turned the volume right up, no sound. Then I inexplicably hit the mute toggle. One second of the loudest sound ever (130 watts into 96db speakers, my ears were ringing).,

Amp goes into protection, speakers go onto the repair pile.

 

[Chester]

Audioquest Dragonfly.

 

[dougi]

Last year while working from home, in my second system I blew out the woofers on my Proac Tablette iiis. Thump from plugging in a DAP into Krell KAV-300i. Both woofers almost went inside out, wrecked. To compound it, dallied trying to buy replacement ones from Falcon Acoustics and they sold out of them a week later.

 

[restorer-john]

I remember our college common room exec committee talking about buying some "really good" audio gear for the parties and social (drinking) events. Some 'expert' had told them Sony ES what they should buy. I was horrified and told them the amplifier and the speakers they were considering were totally unsuitable. What did I know, I was a first year student.

Sure enough, they bought a TAF-444ES integrated and a TOTL pair of APM square cone speakers at vast cost. Had steel cages made for the speakers, bolted the locked cages to the wall etc. The first "Black Russian Club" night both speakers were blown completely (all drivers, one after another) and the amplifier had a channel blown.

I told them to buy a Jands J400 (pro amplifier) and some big Eminar PA bins with 15" in them. They lasted all the time I was there.

 

[escksu]

For me, it was my first surround amp, a marantz SR4300. It was faulty after 1+ month and fried 1 of my Jamo speaker....

 

[Snoopy]

Used Tidal for a while

 

[the_hamster 2]

Relocated to Maui some years ago, took all the stereo gear with us…the amp was the FAB Yamaha M-80…so, set everything up, cabled together all components, then lastly connected cables from amp to speakers. Hit the power switch on the M-80…whoa - big crackle of flames and smoke, fuses blew, along with a dozen transistors and sundry electronics.
Apparently the speaker cables had shorted and caused big current surge. Had the amp rebuilt, but it only lasted 2 more years before it quit for good…bloody shame all round.

 

[AdamG]

Asking my Wife what she wants to listen to! And then the fight started…

 

[Beershaun]

Buying a bunch of car audio speakers and amps thinking I'll install it myself... someday...

 

[Mart68]

I bought my first moving coil cartridge, a Goldring Eroica. It cost me two weeks wages but I was well pleased with it. The next day I was heading back into work after lunch. I was already late when I was accosted by a gypsy woman selling tea-towels, Pressed for time and needing to get her out of my way, I gave her a fiver, which at the time was a ludicrous amount of money for a tea towel.

'It will bring you good luck' she says.

About a week later I am moving house. Everything is boxed up ready to go in a van except the hi-fi which was going by car. Can't be too careful when moving your equipment.

Checking the kitchen to make sure I've not left anything I spy the tea towel. So I scoop it up, walk through into the living room with it, walk past the system and ... manage to snag the cartridge with the towel, ripping the cantilever out of the mounting.

The gypsy woman got the 'I curse you' towels mixed up with the 'good luck' ones that day I think.

 

[egellings]

Accidentally snapped the cantilever off a Linn Troika cart after I had just gotten it re-tipped. Never heard even one note from it!

 

[eric-c]

Worse was buying a very expensive power amp from a new company that kept blowing up and taking the speakers with them. They admitted it was a design fault and sent me their new design as a replacement. Another one was I head a loud pop in my basement then smelled rotten electronics. Went to me theatre (its a cave) and tried to figure what blew up. Ended up being the large filter caps on a Buttkicker amp. This was the time where there were a rash of bad caps in the market.

 

[DVDdoug]

for the parties and social (drinking) events.

Yeah, alcohol is hard on speakers!

I had two DIY disasters -

When I was in college I was trying to build a preamp that on the 1st attempt turned-out to be an RF oscillator! I hadn't connected an input yet, but the power amp was connected and I was very satisfied with how "quiet" it was. Then I heard a little pop from the speaker and my power amp was dead. My tweeters survived, probably because they are inductors at such high frequencies. (I don't know the frequency and I didn't have a 'scope so I just deduced what happened.) Luckily the power amp was a Dynaco kit (that I purchased used and already built) so the parts were easily available and I had all of the documentation. So it cost me a little money and I was very depressed for a couple of weeks until I got the parts and fixed the power amp. Eventually I got the preamp working. ...A valuable learning experience!

Later I had a power amp that I'd built from some high-power op-amp-like modules (something I think they don't make anymore). I hadn't used it for awhile and when I took it out of the closet and powered it on, a couple of electrolytic capacitors blew and my living room filled-up with some very "toxic" smoke and I had to go outside for awhile. I don't remember being worried about an actual fire... It was an easy fix. They were low-voltage capacitors (with low voltage applied. - not part of the main output circuit) but they were probably operating "too close" to their voltage spec. I replace the inexpensive little capacitors and I was back in business! That amp has been back in the closet for MANY years now and I wonder if it still works.

P.S.
One more college misadventure - I was a DJ on the college radio station and just as I was going on the air for the very first time I broke my headphones. (We had to supply our own headphones.) I think somebody loaned me a pair for the rest of the shift. I was kind-of in a panic because I got tied-up and was almost late and going on the radio is kind-of stressful anyway! But overall it was a super-fun experience and I got a big kick out of hearing my recorded voice on the radio in public service announcements (non-commercial station).

 

[BostonJack]

While an undergraduate, I bought a pair of MacIntosh MC 75 mono amplifiers for less than $200 total.
Black, chrome, huge output transformers.. beautiful.

After changing apartments a couple of times, I moved them into my parent's basement for storage. When my mother died, years later, my brother got difficult and would not account for the amps, so they are gone to audio nirvarna, somewhere.

Sad.

 

[ahofer]

Not sure if this counts, but we created such sound pressure levels at a high school dance (with Bose 901 speakers, what else), that a 12X16 plate glass window shattered when someone leaned against it. Very lucky to escape with a few stitches.

Oddly enough, we put up a tarp and continued the dance. 1981, the good old days.

 

[egellings]

'Lytics are designed and specified so that they can be safely operated at the listed working voltage, and a little overhead is added for safety's sake. If you were operating near the bleeding edge and than had even a modest voltage surge, then you could face failure. Either that, or you had some cheapo no-name caps that were poorly made. So if you caps were operating close to the voltage spec (not over it, though) then there should be no problem. Replace with caps from reputable manufacturers, like Sprague, Nichicon, Panasonic or others of known provenance.

 

[MarkWinston]

Audioquest Dragonfly.

Is there a back story to this? Was thinking of picking one up

 

[FrantzM]

About 3 years go, I had an Onkyo or (the Prestige equivalent name for Onkyo) Pre/Pro on a high shelf shelf and it fell on a concrete floor, shattering the faceplate and the entire case .. Would not turn on.. I gave it away