a cat might have prevented my problem....ha
Animal damage to system
After a hard day of work all I wanted to do was relax and watch a movie. I was 2 seconds into the movie and the protection circuit of the receiver activated. Come to find out that the cat had chewed all 3 of the front speaker cables, 1 phone line and 2 coax cables. What kind of damage have you experienced with animals and your system?
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a few weeks ago a smell that was,,,well take my word for it,,BAD, filled my listening room. a mouse had crawled into the velodyne port and died and was rotting. at first i blamed it on my 13 year old....haha. had to throw away all the inner materials, spray in fabreze and leave a wicks stick in there for a week. finally replaced with new damping materials but it was awful. better now. |
I had a customer whose cat climbed up his gas filled Dayton Wright electrostatic speakers - 12000 volts up its proverbial before the gas got it. Also had a business partner who borrowed some Apogees and let his budgerigar loose which flew into one of them. And another customer whose cat peed through his tube preamp whilst it was on. |
A raccoon climbed a power pole up-line from my place where he proceeded to electrocute himself. While short circuiting the lines, there was a power surge sent to my transformer which sent about 240 volts into my place. The lights flickered, then dimmed. I shot to the breaker box and shut the master off. But the smell of burning electronics was already in the air. The system was on at the time. The only casualty (besides the 'coon) was a Monster Power Powercenter getting fried while it saved everything plugged into it. There was nothing else in the house affected by the surge. The power co. confirmed the smoldering, crispy 'coon was the problem. |
If you ever face such problem and animals are creating trouble for you the Best idea is call the Pest control Exterminator. bed bug treatments CT |
Back in an earlier life I had 4 stacked Advents. My cat at the time, Tony, thought the grillcovers made great scratching posts. One time I absent mindedly left the the covers off and he decided the woofers felt pretty good on his claws. Those woofers had weak foam surrounds anyway. When I turned the stereo on the woofers broke free. Didn't sound too good. My present cats have never shown any interest whatever in destroying my stuff. |
Oh, did I forget to mention? A hunter friend of mine tells me that it is possible to buy large animal urine (coyote/wolf) from some hunting stores, although I'm not sure if it's synthetic or real. Apparently a drop here and there will keep away all but the bravest pets. Just think of the fun -a cat thinking it lives with a wolf.... |
Had a Rabbit once that my PETA loving ex wouldn't allow me to cage. Besides pellets andf piss all over the house, it liked to chew on any wire it could find. Years later I still find insulation stripped from one cord or another. Furtunately no fires yet. In the end, the cats got tired of his BS and killed him. I was "very sorry" to find him dead in the corner one day. |
After the cat wrecked my speaker cables, I temporarily replaced them with some other cables I had. This morning I discovered that the cat decided to wreck the surround speaker cables and the outside speaker cables too. The cat chewed them right at the wall plate where the come out of the wall. There is not enough slack wire in the wall to install a speaker binding post jack to extend the cables. It looks like new cables will have to be snaked through the walls again.It did not damage the 3 fronts that I replaced or any of the interconnects yet. We do have 2 large dogs in the house but they both get along well with the cats.Mabey the cat will try out a power cord someday. I want to run my cables in electrical flexible non metalic tubing (ENT)to protect them from any further damage. Is there a limit on many speaker cables can installed together in the ENT? Will I be degrading the sound if I run 7 speaker cables together in the ENT? Thanks for all your posts. |
Ah, the cat. My wife/daughter have a cat so ambitiously named, "Kitty." This cat has not seen the inside of my living room (nor my bedroom for that matter)since the day it was miserably introduced into my life. I would go into cardiac arrest if I saw it near my Gershmans, perhaps trying to 'make out that other strange cat' in their high gloss black finish or perhaps wondering if they might be a good place to sharpen claws. You know, as I've seen many pets in system photos, I have wondered if any one has lived to regret this. I guess some have. Just think what they are up to when you aren't home? I'll bet it's similar to the cartoons where the toys come to life when everyone is asleep and wreak havoc, leaving the innocent kid to be blamed... So, I had a girlfriend (was I around 19-20yrs old?) that had just bought herself a pet rabbit. And could not take it home. Her dad (wisely) would not allow it in his house, so she felt at liberty to use her key (now there's a classic mistake never to be repeated) to provide the rabbit with a safe and warm environment, my living room. I came home to speaker cable chewed right in half, phone cable viciously breached in several places, and of course why would it not take liberty on coaxial cable? To add insult to injury, unlimitless amounts of droppings decorated my floor. Either this rabbit was sick, or it had a strong sense of premonition and realizing it's near final destiny, thought it would strike a last blow to my ego. By the way, my mother makes the best stifado you will ever taste. |
I had a ferret who liked to climb in through the port of my NHT VT2's and fall asleep. He never did any damage, but it took some heavy bass to coax him out of there! I would up buying some plastic plumbing grates at home depot, sanding them smooth on one side, and using double-stick tape to stick them over the ports. Believe it or not, when done they looked like the belonged on there, and I never heard any port noise caused by the grille. |
I keep my dogs in the house with no problems! If one of your cats manage to wiggle in my house, no problem for me the boys will be having fillet of feline! I never heard of cats eating wires. I heard of them spraying, and I heard of of dogs weeing on speakers. But mine dont and they would be in the yard from here on if they do. Time to get rid of the kitty cats and get your selves dogs. LOL Good luck! |
One day I was missing my Totem Forrest speakers' big and reach bass and then another day and then I realized that the woofers had been squized in by my kids. This problem was solved quickly with the duct tape to pop them out back, but previousely one of them pushed the speaker so it fell exactly to the corner of TV tweeter down... That one I needed to replace. Gladly I found the dude who had nearly the same problem and boght pair of new selling him my used. |
Cats! Aren't they great! Mine has this cable/power cord fetish, also. I have replaced every lamp cord going to lights, any and every cable that can be chewed has been--it's gotten so bad that I've had to put the cables inside foam insulation wraps for water lines! And my cat is 10 years old! I've had lots of cats over the years, but none had this cable fixation. I keep thinking I'll come home sometime to find a charcoal pile in the middle of the floor! |
Funny you should mention cats ... Sylvester, the Alpha Male, scratch out out a pair of EPI 100 and a pair of KEF Q55 speakers. He also chewed through some telephone wires (under the carpet) and shorted out my phone system. Scooter, the franchise kittie, almost set my apartment on fire by knocking over a lamp ... the lampshade was smoldering against the light bulb when I walked in. Vino, the tough guy from Bayonne, punched out the aluminum slot protectors on the back of my computer and scratched out the motherboard. Gone are the days when kitties just urinated on the carpet. Keep smiling ... they're just being cats. Regards, Rich |
That's a weird cat....I've never known anything other than hamsters / gerbils do that sort of thing in a domestic setting. I had a gerbil chew through a pair of interconnects - little damage, and my cousin had a hamster chew through a lamp power cord - it didn't survive - not even close.....remind your cat of this! |