Hey Zaikesman ... perhaps if you short out and fry your power amp then the supreme court will overrule the 2000 election results and award the presidency to the party with the most votes. Go on .. it's worth a try. |
I've certainly had component, wire, and other misc problems but nothing that would approach your present litany of woes. It finally dawned on me that the main reason I maintain a "second" system is so that I can cannibalize it for components or wires when a part of my big rig goes down.
I agree, "plastic haired cretin" is a creative observation-- and great!
Hang in there Zman, you'll get it together again, and it'll be better! Craig. |
Boy do I feel your pain! Reminds me of the time I was installing a Black Diamond Racing shelf and cones 'neath my LP12. I was all set to go. I turn on the preamp. Then I turn on the power amp and am greeted with a pop as loud as a shotgun and a plume of smoke coming from my recently upgraded power amp. Actually, it was about this time last year.
As it turned out, it wasn't as I expensive as I thought and only took a week instead of the month I thought it would.
As for the plastic haired cretin, I'm afraid bad politicians are notoriously difficult to get rid of. We won't name names so as to keep the discussion civil. |
This is one reason I have 3 systems in my house, this way at least one works. |
It could be worse. I once read a post from a fella with a nice pair of sound labs (or at least they used to be). He was short on speaker wire so he was in the process of splicing two extension cords together to use as speaker wire. The mother in law noticed one of the unplugged cords and plugged it into the wall socket. It was wired directly to the speaker inputs. Ouch!!!!! |
From what I understand, NPR can damage your hearing. It is known to have lots of glare, grain, hash, along with oodles of veiling. The perspective will put you to the far left.
The immediacy and macro-dynamics of the presentation can lead to immediate protest (doesn't matter what the cause) or to even threaten to leave one's own country (only during an election year).
The micro-dynamics are soap bubbles.
The transparency is obvious to anyone who does not listen on a regular basis.
It's overall sonic signature is overly warm (and fuzzy) and may be considered by some to be bloomy and even bloated at times with a tremendous lack of detail.
In it's place, might I suggest a good dose of Lipitor and warm cocoa curling up with a nice book by the fire?
How about Bill Bennett's 'Book of Virtues'?
-IMO
p.s. sorry to hear about your system woes. |
Well, Zaikes of course we all feel for you. My preamp went back to ARC two times this year. I have a pair of 3.6s and thought these things are built to last. What's happening with the voice-coils assy. that you need to replace them again.
Anyway, we all have a "things to do when I have time list?" |
The Bose and JVC owners have approximately the warranty period to look forward to before one of the machine's critical components--possibly the on-off switch--dies and requires a fix that costs more than half the price of a new unit.
On the other hand when a sulky teenager bangs the vacuum cleaner into the bottom of a rosewood Meadowlark Shearwater Hotrod and chips the veneer, it's gonna cost more to fix than a complete replacement of the JVC mini-system... :-(
Sorry to hear about your woes, Zaikesman, I'd be pretty grouchy if it was me. Best wishes ! |
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?... |
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. |
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). |
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...) |
Regarding your statement about the right honorable gentleman from the great state of Mississippi - apparently out of great tragedy comes great insight. Life's funny that way. |
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Zaikesman, sorry to hear that you have more problems than just crappy outlets!
Seriously, I hope you get it straightened out quickly. Let me know when you are back up and running and when I can start pestering you again.
I love the "plastic-haired-cretin" line! |
Take it easy Zaikes, after doing this for 30 yrs I've had similar experiences. One, for example is after comming home from a business trip I found that my wife had destroyed two midrange and one tweeter in my Von Schweikert's by overdriving them with an underpowered tube amp. Talk about pissed! Hang in there, take it one step at a time and all will work out. |
Holy cow Zaikes! Reminds me of the time I fused ALL the output transistors in my Dynaco Stereo 120 as well as a coupla woofers while running 2 pairs of A-25's in parallel. But wow, it sounded great just before it caught on fire. Live and learn. |
When it rains it pours. Sorry to hear of your plight. As you know you can count on Thiel to help alleviate your problems. Good luck. |
Zaikesman:
So sorry to hear of the problems and I hope it all gets resolved soon.
I can relate -- you may have seen my "fried Levinson" post before Thanksgiving, yet I have been too busy and too tired to even pick it up and pack it for shipment.
In the mean time, I am "listening" to little powered monitors which grate on me like nails on a chalkboard.
But hey -- lets look on the bright side -- you will enjoy your system even more when it is fixed! Why not upgrade?!?
Good luck. |
Small comfort, but from my experience, HT will repair your interconnect very quickly and probably at no cost.,
>plastic-haired cretin
Excellent! |
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