What has been your costliest mistake in this hobby?


For example :I recently learned a hard lesson- I accidentally ran voltage thru my $3000 MC cartridge (kiseki purple heart).  I have a TT with 5 prong connector and a phono cable with a 5 prong connector.  I accidentally swapped where they plugged into and ran electric thru the tonearm into the cartridge.  It was a stupid - not thinking- hasty mistake. When I corrected the problem the cartridge was fried.  An avalanche of four letter words followed!

So what has been your biggest and/or costliest mistake?
polkalover

Showing 1 response by mkgus

I thought it would be fun to hook up a keyboard to my system and play some music. Due to a handling accident, I accidentally sent a 12V signal to my amplifier which proceeded to amplify that to what I calculate was over 140 volts with a fair amount of DC included. Needless to say, the speakers didn’t like it and refused to play again. The silver lining is that I replaced them with a pair of DIY speakers that I never enjoyed, but then learned of a design error I made and now they are my favorite speakers I’ve ever owned. Much better than the pair I blew. I never would have figured it out had I not blown the other pair.