Any funny audiofile stories???


Over the holidays my girlfriend and I went to visit her former neighbors.I had never been to there home before.We were having a drink and great conversation when the gentleman turned the TV off and put in a CD.We continued our conversation but my attention kept drifting off to the music.It was a solo acoustic guitar.Finally after about 2 songs I interupted everybody and I said What are we listening to?The gentleman told me(Brook Williams-Little Lion)Then upon scanning inside his entertainment stand I noticed handles on his components.Now my interest was really peaked.I interupted again and asked what kind of equipment he had.He had some old Carver gear,but the sound was actually pretty sweet and definetely a cut above mass market junk.From this point on you can probably guess what the topic of discussion was.If you guessed gear and music your right.That night I got a crash course on some outstanding folk material,I didn't even know existed.All of the titles he played that night were excellently recorded.We left that night(I had a list of new CD's to buy)and my girlfriend was shaking her head,and said just what you needed an excuse to buy more music.Life is Good.
krelldog
I have nothing funny to speak of - mostly sad audiophile stories. :)

How about posting the list you received from your friend??
Here are the ones I wrote down. Brook Williams-Little Lion-Leo Kotke-Peculiaroso-Leo Kotke-One guitar no vocals-Bill Frisell-Good dog happy man. I bought the Brook Williams and the Bill Frisell.These are tremendous recordings and there great listening to boot. I am sure this is old news,BUT-go to cdnow.com look up artists like these if you are interested.You can hear clips of the songs off the CD.If you like it there are other features such as-what other people who bought this CD also bought.It will then spit out more titles that are usually similiar to this one.Then you can play clips of those to see if you like them.There also used to be a feature called:If you like that CD You'll probably like these.You click on it and it spits out more similiar music.If you have the time cdnow.com is a great tool to find new music.You can listen to new stuff and you don't have to buy. Happy Listening-from the dog who can't afford KRELL.
One night, I'm involved in a serious listening session. Drifting of to my audio Shangri La I start noticing a barely audible intermittent "clicking" from my left speaker. I jumped up, turned my volume down and listen...no clicking. Go back to listening, after awhile, the clicking starts again. Volume down...again no clicking. Tried it one more time. Same results. After the third time, I started checking all my connections. Now The clicking starts with the volume down. That's when I noticed out, of the corner of my eye, that my pet parrot decided he wanted to eat sunflowers seeds from his food dish. His perch sits behind and to the left of the left speaker. I was hearing him cracking open the sunflower seeds... neatly buried in the recording's mix! I had to laugh (real easy fix). Happy Tunes!
Geez Krelldog that's not funny, i'm envious as hell. My neighbor has a bose system driven by Pioneer receiver from the 80s. He lives in one of those modular, do it yourself homes, and the chassis underneath has a resonant frequency of about 2.8khz as far as I can tell. He's screwed those bose right into the aluminum superstructure. His wife's (my wife's best friend) favorite is Celine Dion and well...when she reaches that high A (every other bar) ....I think it could sink a ship. There isn't a dog left in the neighborhood.

Sincerely, I remain
Clueless, Its time to move brother!!!!!! Or when she's not home pay for a stripper to come over and visit him.Let nature take its course,and the next thing you know they will be moving.(to seperate places that is)
Run for the hills, Clueless. I hear Celine Dion wants to do Vagas for 3 years. Arn't you Americans soooo lucky? Here's a little story. I had just bought this cottage 3 years ago and was busy unpacking the last boxes when my little niece and nephew arrived from next door. My niece immediately spotted a box of 45 records I had yet to put away. What's that?" Those are records and they make music...she quickly grabbed one and ran over to the cd player, opened the door and looked at it. "It don't fit" she cried. To which my nephew said. "Of course not. You play it on that great big thing[pointing at the roxan turntable] on top of the stand"....man did I feel old.....
I had chicken wire-- that's right chicken wire, completely around my Vandersteen 3Asigs (the 3As have cloth on all four sides) for over a year to keep our kitten from climbing them anymore. The cat had climbed them several times. The chicken wire looked like hell and at the time it wasn't funny, but it was effective. But now, with speakers that have wood on the lower 2/3 of all four sides, the cat doesn't bother them, and in retrospect the chicken wire period was sort of funny. There were other solutions of course, but hey, we liked the cat too. Cheers. Craig.
selling at a local fleamarket, a young'un (might have been bluenose's niece or nephew) picked up an eight track tape and asked "what kinda game is this"? kurt
"Omigod, is a power supply failing or what?" = cat dozing behind subwoofer. The purr, just like the sub, was corner-loaded.
Kind of funny now that I look back: I was sitting down soldering, in the nude, a few months ago and... (well, you can fill in the rest). My wife thought that I was having either some type of seizure and/or heart attack when I jumped up from the table swearing/howling/jumping about the room. Since then I try to do most of my soldering out on the patio (due to the fumes), but regardless take the time to get dressed (I even put on shoes) before starting work.
We have a dwarf rabbit named Jezebel (she weighs less than 2 lbs). Sometimes "Belle" likes to get in the corner behind the speakers or tries to chew on them. One night I swore I heard her scratching in the corner, but I couldn't see her, nor could my wife. This kept on happening, kept on hearing her but couldn't see her. Then we heard this noise. The bass port came flying out from the back of the speaker, with Jezebel right behind. We still allow her to listen, but that's getting a little too close to the music
Man, you guys have me cracking up. I can relate to Dekay's soldering, but NOT quite. A lot of times i'll solder wearing a t-shirt and shorts, so my legs are exposed. With an 800 degree tip, the solder can flow VERY easily. Needless to say, my girlfriend knows exactly how fast and erratically i can move. At least under those conditions : ) Sean
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i am not sure if this is funny or not.i now have an arc vt 100 mk 2.but that is because i lost my first amp an arc d 130 when my cat bigfoot relaxed on top of the amp in the winter where it was warm and apparently urinated into it.i think that is the quickest way to toast an amp.but i still have him.on the bright side had it not been for these circumstance i may never have got into tubes.ahh....glorious tube sound.regards, tim2x
i am not sure if this is funny or not.i now have an arc vt 100 mk 2.but that is because i lost my first amp an arc d 130 when my cat bigfoot relaxed on top of the amp in the winter where it was warm and apparently urinated into it.i think that is the quickest way to toast an amp.but i still have him.on the bright side had it not been for these circumstance i may never have got into tubes.ahh....glorious tube sound.regards, tim2x
Not too funny at the time, but I can laugh now. My son and his friend decided to play "Scratch DJ" with my Rega Planar 3/Sumiko Blue Point cartridge.
Garfish. Just wondering, did the chicken wire provide a HUGE improvement in the musicality? Any connection between chicken wire and planting natural grass in the listening room? Fatparrot, can I replace the parrot with a chicken, if I go for the chicken wire tweak and the natural grass tweak? Chickens are readily available, they are not hustled into North America by shady characters using deceptive means they cluck nicely and, if you later upgrade to Rock Cornish hens, you can always roast it.
Dekay, you are indeed the tweakmeister! I looked up your system and immediately perceived what your avocation truly is, and now I realise you almost paid the ultimate price (or very close to it) in pursuit of your tweaky ways. God bless us all Tweaky Tim!
Not necessarily funny, but true: some nine years ago my house was broken into. Aside from my wife's jewelry, you guessed it, the sound system was the one thing these nefarious characters went for. They took everything they could carry (which means the equalizer for the Thiel 3.5s, but not the speakers...), but left my two turntables. Seems there wasn't too many vinyl lovers in taverns even a decade ago...
When my children were 2 & 4 they decided to use the plastic tool kit Christmas present I had so thoughtfully purchased to adjust the VCR. When I walked into the room they were both laying face down in front of the VCR with the door up & a large orange plastic screwdriver jammed in it. They both turned to look at me when I walked in & with big smiles said something like,"daddy, we're fixing it". I didn't want to break their spirit so I told them they did a good job but the VCR was beyond repair so I had to buy a new one.

One day we couldn't find one of the cats anywhere around the house; no one had been outside but we hunted all around anyway to no avail. Hours later, I have no idea why my wife thought to check the speakers, but sure enough there he was tucked right into the upper cabinet section of a Belle Klipsch, which is wide open to the backside where the cabling attaches to the crossover. I crammed some stiff packing foam into the opening to keep him out, but he still made several more attempts to jump up & get back in there. Big fat Siamese; I still dunno how or why he ever did it? But it sure was funny seeing him in there & he did *not* want to come out either.
Sold a Subie last night to a wonderful couple who I had met 5 years before when they had bought an older one from me.
They were toting their adopted Korean newborn with them then.
This time this too-healthy boy took the icicle I broke off the garage eve for him to suck on and started climbing up onto my Parsifal Encore while we're doing the paperwork.
I screamed almost loudly enough to kill the sale! Oy!
I have had the same experience as fatparrot.. my african grey was eating and i kept on thinkinh WHAT is that sound? it was driving me crazy.. lol, And i cant listen to Santana's Turn your lights down low without my cockatiel squaking . apparently in the recoering there is a bird making some noise and my bird thinks its real. lol its a pretty funny sight.
This is more plaintive than funny, but this is the closest thing to the appropriate thread.

I worked in production at the Apt Corporation. Tom Holman had a very, very severe thing about not liking anodized black aluminum faceplates, so his products had a kind of gray enamel paint. I don't know why, but faceplates must be more difficult to paint then, say, cars, because we had about a 25% rejection rate (or so we thought) due to hairs in the finish or other flaws. BTW, these were reasonably priced products.

Our supplier, Bruce, was a great guy. We were suitably impressed that he learned Japanese so he could go direct to faceplate manufacturers in Japan who had clean paint rooms. But still rejections.

As you know, Apt struggled financially and organizationally, due to an over-educated, under business degreed cast of characters, including an odd autodidact who had several patents in color copiers, "FK". I digress.

"Natalie" was responsible for visual quality control, and, along with everyone else, was under a certain amount of pressure to ship "anything that doesn't move" near each month's/quarter's/year's end to help preserve our position.

Well, one day the faceplate supplier, Bruce, came all the way from New Hampshire to examine all these rejected faceplates. He, Natalie and I mulled over the situation together, and Bruce went back to his headquarters armed with new, firsthand, accurate information about the problem. This meeting happened to take place on the last day of a quarter. Bruce was satisfied that I was well informed about the situation.

Two days later, Natalie covertly called me over to her station, and sheepishly began pulling out an illegal, secret horde of personally rejected faceplates she had squirrelled away in the (correct) belief that $500 and $700 was too much to pay for cosmetically imperfect products, precarious finances or no. It was like just too many clowns coming out of a small circus car. We had more like a 40% rejection rate, it turned out. I think it broke Bruce's heart to learn of this later. He took up Chinese to forget.

So, first, Natalie, here's to you. You are fired or you are promoted memorially, I am not sure which. I will never forget your apologetic, demure, wary smile as you revealed your trove to me.

BTW, this reminds me, Tom Holman had a very, very severe thing about not liking spray painted metal top plates, so his preamp had a kind of gray, alligator skin-like fleck paint. I don't know why, but gray, alligator skin-like fleck top plates must be harder to paint than, say, gray enamel faceplates because....
Nothing funny...hahaha TRUE STORY WITH ME AND MY SYSTEM...
One day, I had a party, same as everyone else... People were interested with my pretty speakers and my super huge amp. Just about the time when I were trying to put the CD into the CD player's tray.... Someone asked... WHY DO YOU HAVE WATER HOSES RUNNING TO YOUR ELECTRONICS? I opened my mouth unshut...SHOCKED... accidently drop the cd on the floor... Wanted to crack up... Okay... I hold it in... and they were saying that they have less buttons and functions when compare to their "bring-home-plug-and-play-all-in-one-boom-box"...haaha...My God... they were asking how much I spent on the electronics and I was saying they cost about the same as their Mercedes out there... THEIR TURN.... They opened their mouth unshut... SHOCKED... dropped their portray on the floor (pshh... have to clean)...
I am sure many of you has gotton into a terrible conflict with your "House-Ruling-Monster"... Your girl, your wife... Maybe right here, right now; whenyou are reaing this, you've just got out from one... seems like they can't stop complaining about your so called "Huge Big Black and Silver Boxes"... b_tch about your "Water Hoses"... claims that it's a waste of money & time... Shoots out "bullet" like a M16.

For once, maybe I can think of some Pre-Customized answers to those ANNOYING & UPSETTING complaints. They might be fight-causing but sometimes, they work just GREAT!
(**This is on your own risk! Dont come back crying if you get smacked or beaten up by your monster...)

TOP TEN "WHAT-TO-SAY WHEN...":

1.)When your wife complaints that you are spending too much money on "whatever-you-just-bought-home"...

ANSWER: Tell her that her $300.00 Gucci HandBag cost even more, because she ONLY use it for about 10 times in a year and each time is about 5 hours. 50 hours of usage makes her handbag's Average Hourly Value $6/hr. Your $900.00 "whatever-you-bought-home" WOULD BE CHEAPER, because you use that to listen to music almost everyday for at least 3 hrs a day, let's say 300 days out of 365 days in a year you listen to your music, 900 hrs of listening gives an Average Hourly Value of your interconnect to be $1.00/hr so it will still be cheaper. If the monster is still b_tching about it's price, suggest lower the amount of cuddling time and instead, higher the amount of time you will use with your rig, this way they Average Hourly Value will even be CHEAPER because you use them more...

2.)If your wife is claimming that you spend too much time with your Stereo...

ANSWER: Hobby is to release daily accumulated stress and to ease your mind from bad experiences and rough time throughout the day. They are in balanced ratio. The more stress you have, the longer time you will spend with your stereos... If you (your wife) can help reduce the stress with less complaints, it will also help reduce the time you spend with your rig.

3.) If she compaints that your speakers are too big...

ANSWER: Tell her that they are still smaller than her closet.

4.) If she claims that she wants a Home Theater too...

ANSWER: Sell one of your cheapest speaker cables and buy her a Sony/Technics/Teac/Philips Home Theater, make sure it has 10,000 colorful LEDs for her to look and 10,000 buttons for her to press.

5.) If she claims that your "Big Huge Black Speakers" are ugly...

ANSWER: Suggest buying a new one, usually Avalon, Genesis, Watt or those expensive speakers are also pretty, as well they usually sound better than the one you have.

6.) If she compaints that the ConEd bill is too high and she assumes it's because you have too many electronics...

ANSWER: Dumb the heater away and suggest to use your HUGE CLASS A AMPLIFIER or 12 TUBES AMPLIFIER for heating purposes instead.

7.) If she complaints that the TV is too small, and it look funny sitting in the middle of your "Big Huge Black Boxes"...

ANSWER: Get a projector!

8.) If she ask you to shut off your stereo so she can watch TV...

ANSWER: Get her a pair of Wireless Headphones...

9.) If she says that you have too many CDs/DVDs/LPs...

ANSWER: Tell her to go count how many pieces of clothings she has (it may take a day or two...), and suggest that either she can stop buying clothes and you will stop buying CDs also; or she can continue buying and so do you.

10.) If she EVER say she's gonna divorce you because she can't stand your hobby...

ANSWER: Divorce her and go marry your Stereos.

DISCLAIMER: Above is only a joke, I lay no responsiblity for anything bad (might be really bad) that happens if you really go use them. Situation varies and might result may be dfferent. On your own risk, my friend! Happy New Year!
One of my earliest systems was a pair of BIC Venturis, Advent 300 receiver and beautiful little Connoisseur turntable. My parents were away for the week, but our cleaning lady was scheduled to come in a couple of times as usual. One night with the system on there was a very sudden, severe thunderstorm (this was in a tobacco/corn farming belt - lots of dangerous humidity), and I was shaken by a tremendous, close lightning strike somewhere very close to just outside the wall height window where the stereo was placed. The music stopped. I saw a curl of smoke coming from the Advent, and the Connoisseur turned out to be not even repairable at the factory. Tragic perhaps, but nothing so unusual. The next day, when the cleaning lady was doing her thing, she came up and started fretting that she and/or I had somehow improperly watered the potted fir on the back patio in a strange way, and that my mother would be upset. I went out and saw that it was an even, dry, crisp brown from stem to stern - no singeing - where two days ago it had been a rich green. The "factory" couldn't salvage the fir either, but neither the cleaning woman nor I got in trouble - we had a more or less electrifyingly airtight alibi....