Access/Use Restrictions-Listening Room


As I was in the listening room, cleaning this morning, I thought of this idea for a thread.

Do you have any restricted access/use rules for your listening room?

We have only ONE *no house cleaners*

And before you get too huffy, like we're rich or something and have FiFi, the upstairs maid here everyday…. We're not and we don't, even though my husband would probably be open to that idea. :-)

We have them come in 2X/month to do the heavy cleaning - floors, baths, ovens, etc. It's well worth the few bucks they charge to have that time back in our busy lives.

*Tip for you husbands - would make a most excellent present to your wife. (and do it for no reason, don't wait for a birthday or anything). Guaranteed to get lots of mileage out of that one.*

Anyway, we made that decision when they were here once (I was working at home that day) and they bumped one of the Apogee Stages, knocking it off the stand flat on it's face - WHAM!) In the process, yanking the amp off the stand (that IC just made it) and bending one of the posts. As she stood there, thinking no big deal, I was freaking out! Luckily, no harm done. But lesson learned; these folks have no clue about how to behave around expensive gear and the thought of a vacuum cleaner bumping the speakers THEN trying to put it back so no one would know…… we come home, turn it on - POOF !

So……….guess who gets to clean it? At least we know everything will be ok afterwards.
angela100
Since my house cleaner years ago, dusted off my record player and its cartridge in the process, the listening area is strictly off limits for all and the mishaps which occasionaly occur are strictly caused by my own stupidity. A much better arrangement, I find.
from the reality files: panic stricken siamese cat runs into the listening being chased by eight year old boy...boy nudges lp's over displacing cinder block bookend from planking underneath...cinderblock tips bicycle resting peacefully against the wall... bike slides down the back of a spiked 60 lb KEF tower, tumbling it onto its face ~wham crash!~ ...KEF makes direct hit on portable tapedeck lying on the floor, smashing it to pieces... would i lie to you? sure i can laugh now, haha. some food for thought :-)
What a great thread Angela! I don't use housecleanerpersons because I am such a perfectionist that there is no one in the world who can clean my house like I can! Yep, that's right I'm the maid in my mansion. This works good because my wife does the cooking (god forbid you hand the spatula to me)and I do 90% of the cleaning. This also serves to protect the Stereo equipment from over zealous scrubbers and lint collectors. I have to devote separate time to primping and grooming the stereo. I usually do this last after the floors are vacumed (stirs up more dust)and the kitchen and bathroom floors mopped. In a way I find it a nice come-down from the main cleaning. I have to be relaxed and not hurried. I previously had my Epos ES12,s mounted on stands without any adhesive between stand and spk. Big mistake. One day while cleaning the windows I wasn't paying attention when stepping back to admire my work and slightly bumped the stand. Had I not whirled around in such a panic to see what I had done, the speaker most likely would have remained on the stand. But, because of my paniced-whirling I sent the speaker crashing to the floor. Tears.....Oh, well. I had quit smoking for about a month, but the disaster was to much to take. 2 small dents now graced the veneered side of my previously "new" speaker! Well, you can pretty much guess...that ended the stopped-smoking routine. I immediately went and purchased an entire carton of cigs and proceeded to smoke them. I have since found the audio miracle blu-tak which will hopefully help me avoid this kind of thing again. If only I had known of this stuff, my spk might have remained on the stand. The other lesson is...Don't screw around, clean around, hang around, etc. by the stereo!!! This is my only rule and it's mainly needed for protection from people like myself. Natural born clutz!
Same rule. Housecleaner not allowed. All clening in listening room done by yours truly. Siamese cats (I have 3) allowed only when I'm there...otherwise they sit on the BAT preamp (it's warm!). Worst moment...female Siamese cat trying to clear hairball from throat right on top of BAT preamp. I beat her to the punch..by a fraction of a second. For the most part, the cats behave..and they are impossible to keep out of the room in the Winter (all the tubed gear makes it nice and toasty after a couple of hours)
Yesterday we had a sonic boom in LA. At the same time that I heard the boom, I also heard a clunk from the stereo cabinet (the DAC had toppled from its cone points and landed a sixteenth of an inch from a digital microwire that I recently purchased. Well last night I ordered a "real" equipment rack from Audio Advisor and plan to use the Neuance shelves that fellow member RedKiwi has had such positive results with. The Neuance is said to work best with just the components resting on their stock feet, and I will be doing away with all of my wonderfull and precarious cone points. The equipment is also being relocated to a hall closet just off the living room. This was going to be a long term project, which included me building my own rack from scratch, but now it seems that it will be completed as soon as I can justify the expense of two of the Neuance shelves (to start) with my wife. I think that I will start tonight, with a couple of rib-eyes and some creamed spinach (with pearl onions:-) I suppose that I should tell her about the rack that I purchsed as well since it will probably arrive early next week. Now that I use CD's as a source any of our guests are welcome to use the stereo rig. Before when I used vinyl, only a chosen few were allowed to operate my system. We did use a cleaner for a while when I was completely disabled, but coming from a blue collar background it felt kind of funny having someone do my own "chores", plus I was home while he was doing them. The guy (Aurturo) though was great with all of the fragile things that we have (much better than I am) and still works for a neighbor of ours.