What is your scariest moment in High End audio?

About a week after installing a new INNUOS Pulse, Somehow, my phone jumped to a Public Xfinity Wi-Fi. I was going crazy for an hour trying to figure it out, calling all kinds of people. They say the majority of warranties are very early in the product life. Was definitely future tripping about all of the rigmarole I was going to have to go through to get it fixed. Fortunately, I am finding that these things are tanks and really hard to mess up. So that fear is gone and now all is well.  

Observing one of my 845 SET amps go up in literal smoke, nearly 1000 volt plate voltages means this quite spectacular. This was both scary and a horror show.

Phase Linear 400.Boom..Need I say more?

When my son plays a song that includes content that sounds just like a woofer flapping....might be from Radiohead but can't recall.  It had me out of the chair and on my feet immediately!  

A circuit board on one of the ARC VTM 120s I used to own caught fire.

When she reached her hand down my front pocket and the receipt was in there.

Also back in the day one of my sons (now 38) when he was two, turned the stereo all the way up and fried the Marantz receiver and my pride and joy ADS 810's. He was so freaked out by the loud noise that he sobbed uncontrollably and we had to comfort him. About a year later he put some coins in my wife's (expensive it was) Macintosh 512K disk drive and fried it. His first child is on the way.  We'll see what happens. 

EVERY time I sell a piece of gear & get paid via Paypal G&S...

What is your scariest moment in High End audio

Telling my spouse I’ve purchased another pricey component 

Not the scariest, but the craziest....

Had an old slot fed CD player that the eject and stop buttons on the remote were right next to each other.  I hit the eject button and it shot the CD out before it stopped spinning.  A 200 rpm frisbee of death came flying across the room straight at me.  (Needless to say, the CD player was toast... a broken plastic tab on the eject mechanism.)

In the late 70’s a co-worker and myself walked into the Conrad Hilton Chicago for a Hi-Fi/Electronics show.  I walked out with a used Phase Linear amp.  My co-worker said “Don’t waste your money on that crap.” He was speaking in general about hi-fi stuff. He was married, I was single.  Sure enough, the Phase Linear (some called Flame Linear) smoked and took out my speakers. Fortunately, as a DIYer I restored the speakers, but didn’t salvage the amp.

I often think about his criticism of those early days of my audio journey as I have gotten so much enjoyment from it all these decades.  Short term, he was spot on!

@bjesien nice. 

This is a funny post.just cringe every time my power surges off and on at least 2 x a wk. The high dollar surge conditioner so far has worked.i dread the day multiple of them don't. I might lose some sound quality but I can't afford the alternatives. Enjoy the music.

A House cleaning service staff worker somehow knocked over an expensive floor-standing speaker into a MAPLESHADE audio rack with its threaded / knurled steel pipes supporting the shelves .

The momentum of the large floor-stander speaker crashing free-fall into the audio rack knurled steel pipe chipped a sizeable chunk out of the premium wood veneer finish.

I could not stomach looking at the resulting FUHBAR , so I immediately sold the speakers that cost me a sizeable wad of cash by a forced accident damage discount

Yep…. I cringed when I had to fess up to the missus about new speaker replacement cost after first dumping  the muthatrucker dumbass house cleaning staff that tried to hide it by squirrelling out of the house without telling me first. 

@retiredaudioguy 

When I first read your post where you said you had a glass of wine in hand, my first image was you spilling it into your tube preamp. That would make for a mighty bad day.

KennyC :  

repeat after me: “forgiveness is (almost always) easier than permission”

However, that being said, I completely concur, that wrath is the one consistent fear-factor in our “hobby” - and that should assist everyone of these other events being put in perspective -  

Was listening to a c.d. when lightening struck. The strip protectors weren't so good back in '88 , heard a loud pop. It destroyed the transformer on my 120w Kenwood amp.

Reading the great posts triggered another memory.  I had bought a store's (several years old) demo unit of a highly regarded PP 300B amp, with its tubes.  Some months later, as I was listening, smoke came out of the ventilation grid on the chassis top, and a bright red anode appeared. A 300B tube filament had sagged and touched the grid. Instant destruction of the tube and the bias resistor.

I sent the amp back to the factory where they repaired the damage and installed the protection circuitry of the newer version.  To this day I try to never leave a running tube amp unattended for any extended period.

The 300B specs do state that the tube is best used used in a vertical position, or if that is not possible, with the filaments' long sides vertical.

Vintage setup, so anything can happen. Added a sub a few months ago. 

Sounded great after getting it all sorted. Thought I'd swap out the speaker cables from the amp to the sub. 4ft of 10g wired in, over the zip cord that was thrown in for setup. 

It sounded ok, but was surprised the zip cord was just as good, if not better....

Then started to loose bass, played around with the sub, checked connections were tight, sub was on. Also felt like my speaker balance was off, it just sounded off. Loos of dynamics, center image was off, the system was just "scattered". This plagued me for several weeks. Great, my just restored amp is going out..

Scoured the web for a replacement, found a nice pre & power amp 4h away. Called the guy, we chatted agreed to meet half way. Piled the dog in the car for a road trip. Units as described, power amp looks better than mine. We drive off

Get home, test the new stuff out, it sounds much better, but not as good as after my refreshing my pre & power amp. Hook my pre-amp into the new power amp. Oh yeah, that sounds good! It must be my power amp going out. Put my old power amp back, switch on. OMG, it sounds AMAZING, what?

Months ago, when I swap out the zip cord, swapped the left ch, so it has been out of phase. Cost me a thousand bucks, and lots of sleepless nights of worrying. Felt like a dumb a$$. Now I got spares....

I had installed my speakers hanging from the ceiling of my attic bedroom. They were big big speakers, Rectilinear 7a's. I had to walk to my bed in the dark since there was no 3-way switch for the lights.

As I groped my way to the bed, I hit one of the speakers and it fell. Missing my foot by less than an inch. It broke a floorboard and chipped the corner of the speaker.

I can only imagine the damage it would have done to my foot. 

Oh God!  When I used a ferros machinest square to set up my Benz Micro Glider, and the powerful magnet pulled the arm sideways and clipped off the Boron cantaliver.  By by Benz !  $2k gone in a heartbeat!

bjesien posted;

"When she reached her hand down my front pocket and the receipt was in there."

Wife, "I thought you said four or five hundred!!"

Biesien, "No, I said fourty five hundred..."

Sitting next to an old guy listening to a pair B&W Nautilus. He had the remote sandwiched between the tablet as he was searching for music, he was slowly and inadvertently turning the volume up as a song was ending! When the next song came on, I couldn’t move fast enough to keep it from starting at full volume!! The Amps were a quartet of Levinson’s so plenty of powa!! My heart jumped out of my chest!!! lol 

Had just setup my new Rotel CD player and was changing a disc.  I waited too long with the drawer open and the machine started to close the disc tray with the CD not fully in place.  I was able to open the drawer without the CD being damaged but thought for sure I’d be spending more of my money to hear Pink Floyd again.  

I turned my system on as usual and heard a deafening, window-rattling thump in the speakers, upon which both amps went into protection.

Turns out one channel had died in my pre's outboard power supply. Getting only half the normal differential voltage, the pre was dutifully sending some 10V DC offset into the amps.

Good thing they had protection and it worked fast... No apparent damage to the speakers.

@bjesien ....I wondered what spouse did with her other hand upon seeing the price.....

-Dope slap?

-Plunge into other pocket, fumble and squeeze Real Hard?

-Microwave meals and the couch for awhile?

...one knows (or ought to) 'going in' to the situation that she'll Never be enthused about how it 'sounds better'....

The only dodge that might SYA is the present something of equal or better that she'll appreciate....
Worse case would be some sonic thrills from her that won't be musical but have highs that will make your new object either jealous or frightened....

Preamp can use 6SN7 or 12SN7 tubes via switch on the back. Had a pair of 6SN7s installed. Swapped in a pair of 12SN7s but forgot to flip toggle on back for 12v. Played music for a minute or so - dull and lifeless. Realized my mistake to flip toggle ... YIKES! Fortunately, no harm. Of course, had it been the other way around, 12v into 6v tube, perhaps that might have started a fireworks show?

Got an SPL Phonitor Headphone Amp w/24bit/192kHz DAC (Black)

Plugged everything in and powered the system up with a brand new pair of Sennheiser HD-660s.

Smoke started pouring out of the top vent on the SPL Phonitor and as I reached over to unplug it,there was a tremendous POP in my left ear that blew out that channel. A cap exploded and destroyed the headphones. My left ear rang for a half hour.  My retailer replaced the Headphones with an open box unit.  The SPL Phonitor was sent back to Germany.  After a year in service with SPL, my retailer

gave me a refund.  Complete scary nightmare !