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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
builder3
758 posts
 

Sounds like some of your friends behave like ill-mannered children. Replace them.

classicalpiano
36 posts
 

33 yrs ago I owned 1 ohm Apogee Scintillas in my great room. Loved them! A friend brought his 4 young kids over for a cookout. I found one child laying in his side, kicking the bottom of the woofer ribbon repeatedly. Surprised to see no damage because all that protected the aluminum panel was a thin nylon sock. His parents thought that was amusing. I didn't. I let him live to see his 7th birthday. I did build a home with a separate listening room that nobody accesses without my permission, with limited seating. I love sharing listening sessions but not too much with non-audiophiles - usually they don't care to know how to listen; don't want to be taught, and will find the most critical musical moment to talk to anyone who is actually listening. It ruins the experience, but everyone get a chance! BTW, my current Apogee Divas are 32 yrs old, refurbished by Bill Thalman in VA 7 yrs ago, have never had any evil beset upon them! Superb speakers! Apogee made great equipment, and for classical, jazz and folk listeners nothing beat them IMHO. Happy listening!

hayride's avatar
hayride
2 posts
 

the problem I have is the people that race  over to touch the tubes when they discover I have a  tube stereo,and have no idea what they are looking at

asa
662 posts
 

Beat them, mercilessly.

krelldreams
128 posts
 

Some really great responses here! By now, most of my friends, and all of my family know that my stereo equipment is precious to me, so I’ve had no incidents in a long time thankfully. Anyone new to the house that doesn’t know, I politely tell them that the stereo stuff is delicate, and valuable to me. If they ask questions, I tell them about it, if they don’t, well that’s fine, they got the point about not touching. I’ve gone through having kids, and grandkids, and the message gets passed down from older to younger, generation to generation 😂 .. I’ve always refused to have a separate closed listening room. I want to share my love of music with my family. Plus, my belief is that it’s better to educate rather than isolate (I do have an acrylic cover for the turntable.. just in case!). It was a great experience watching my kids, and now my grandkids dancing in my living room with the system playing (they know to not dance near the speakers and turntable!). There were incidents in the past though…

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