Ever Have One Of Those Evenings?


Tonight, I went downstairs, turned on the system, and it sounded like crap. Within an hour I had:

>Discovered that one of my Thiel 2.2's has either a dead woofer (most likely), or a crossover or internal wiring problem. Testing to diagnose will commence tomorrow, tonight I'm too P.O.'ed.

>Additionally discovered that the tweeter on the other side is distorting badly, and will need the dome/voice-coil assembly replaced (again).

>Confirmed that my most costly set of interconnects has a bad jack connection (these are Harmonic Technology Magic Link Ones, which naturally feature a plug design that cannot easily be opened up for inspection or repairs without destroying the heat-shrink sleeve).

>Faced the distinct possibility that my futzing around behind the preamp trying to ascertain the culprit in the latter problem - without first turning down the volume - may well have been the cause of least one of the first two problems.

>Realized that now, not only can't I listen to my system the regular way, but since the OEM (non-standard) headphone amp output jack I got from Musical Fidelity's distributor to replace the faulty original in my X-Cans quickly developed the same exact problem as the old one (no right channel with either set of 'phones), I cannot even listen with my headphones for the time being, except through my CD-R recorder's wimpy monitoring jack.

Looks like I'm on a steady diet of cable movies and NPR for a while. (Way to go, Trent Lott: at least you'll be out-of-sight, out-of-mind by this time next week, you plastic-haired cretin - your plight is the one redeeming feature of my evening!)
zaikesman
Yeah, but it don't exactly take tons of insight to figure out which way the wind blows with certain people! But hey, the bigger the mouth, the better the shoe fits. Not even Gore's gloating and Daschle's head-scratching are going to take the deliciousness out of watching this death-spiral go down (but I should be careful what I wish for - Alfred E. will probably actually come out ahead for having the guy who lost his party the Senate last time take a hike...)
Man oh man. I've had a bass radiator on a pair of Thiels come unglued and fried one of their coaxial drivers (unrelated, both replaced); had a muting switch on an amp go so that it made the speakers sound like they were being torn in half whenever you turned if off; had a tubed preamp become posessed so that it would accumulate and discharge electrical charges in strange patterns, make some awful sounds, blow the fuses in my amp, and actually cause the lights in my appartment to flicker and pulse (honest); later discovered (much later, and after much fretting) the the poltergeist may have been summoned by a bad wire in an interconnect, not the preamp. And I considered this a bad year, but all in one EVENING. As I said, man oh man. I feel your pain.

Do have to agree with Cwlondon, though, in that every time one of my disfunctional little family would throw a temper tantrum, get yanked, scolded and sent home to its parents for an attitude readjustment, it was an extra special treat to rediscover the sound of real music (after a diet of the little squeek box on the TV) upon their return. It's a relatively cheap way to keep the upgrade demons satiated. (That said, even if it does feel good when you stop, it doesn't make hitting your head against the wall a good idea, either).
Zaikes, hang in there! I went for 8 months without my primary system which was in storage when my house was being built. I finally got everything together, hooked it up and my power amp started billowing smoke. One of the wires in the preamp came loose and I was sending the amp 24 volts DC! I'm still waiting to get everything repaired but yanked out a couple of capacitors (per manufacturer's directions) on the amp and have a loaner preamp. Just look forward to the time it all comes back together. Pure bliss! Good luck.
Gosh, looks like I have it easy. Why is it I suspect that Bose Wave and JVC rack system owners don't actually have these episodes - wasn't this dee-lux stuff supposed to be sturdier?...