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How do you stop house guest from damaging your speakers?

Over the years I have had many adult guest coming to my house and curious about my speakers though I never mention to them I’m an audiophile. Most of the time they will lean close to the speaker, looking at the driver, maybe occasionally touching the cabinet or knocking on the cabinet. But in other times I’ve had guest touching drivers gently as well and I usually just tell them to stop to prevent them from damaging the driver when I see them doing that.

Yesterday I had a little sit down with a few guests and one of them wanted to play my Blade 2. Out of nowhere, while the music is playing he stood up and walked to the speaker and knocked on the side driver woofer and asked “are these speakers too?” It was probably 3 or 4 consecutive hard knock on the woofer while the woofer is playing, and you guys can already imagine my facial expression. I don’t want to blame the guest as the blade’s woofer doesn’t look like regular woofer and I can’t expect guests to have knowledge of how not to damage speakers, but man, that really hurts when I saw that happen.

I inspected the driver afterward and it seems like all is good and the driver survived. I don’t remember if I heard distortion while the music is playing but to my knowledge this would easily fall into the abuse category for an audiophile.

I’m wondering, do I attach a label to say do not touch on those drivers? Do I tell guests not to physically touch the speakers? 

bwang29

Showing 2 responses by cd318

cd318
2,636 posts
 

@gjohns

There are two types of people in the world. Us and Them 😌

 

Agreed, though sadly compared to them we're the tiny minority.

My Tannoy Berkeley’s have solid wooden grilles with just a cutout for the 15 inch drive units.

Behind their beige fabric no one has yet realised that the grilles can be removed.

Nothing good could happen if they did.

As for this worrying tend to see some loudspeakers being sold without grilles, no, no, no!

cd318
2,636 posts
 

An exposed loudspeaker dome is asking for it.

Especially when its a tweeter.

At the very least it’s being provocative.

Pushing buttons is something we’re all brought up to do.

A difficult habit to resist for most non audiophiles.

I’ve even heard some people say how much they want to push them in.

So, unless it’s protected by a wire mesh (great idea) you’re better off leaving the grille securely in place.

Especially when it’s a very expensive alloy dome.

Sometimes it’s good to take precautions, as I remind my nephew who refuses to get a case for his super slippery Samsung phone.

He’s on his 2nd screen now and that’s also broken.

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