Your Worst Audio Breakdown

I had a pair of VTL MB250 monoblock amps. I was listening late one night and dozed off after the music had stopped. When I awoke, I saw a shower of sparks coming from the back of one of the amps like a rooster tail, straight up in the air. It looked as if someone had lit a 4th of July fireworks display cone. Bewilderment quickly became sensibility and I plucked the cord from the wall. All that was left of the B+ fuse holder was a charred cinder. A friend said the breakover voltage of the fuse holder had been exceeded.

VTL was absolutely great in handling this-no charge. When the amps came back they had the new-style, large fuse holders that you now see used on the VTL amps.

I had to send one channel of my Cary 500mb's back a couple years ago. Took about 5-6 weeks from the time it went down until I got it back. That was painful. My old Toscanini mono's got a lot of play!

Back in the late '80s I had borrowed a tubed Counterpoint amplifier from a dealer in San Francisco. (I had bought my Counterpoint preamp from him earlier that same year.) It was plugged in to drive my Martin Logan Sequel II speakers. So my friend and I sat down to audition it, and I fired it to to listen. (Fired it up being the operative word here!) Flames immediately shot straight out of the unit as soon as we started, and I quickly jumped up and turned it off and pulled the plug.

I took it back to the dealer and explained what happened. (Up until this point, I was really scared that he was going to say "Well, looks like you just bought an amp!!!")
He looked and said a tube had gone bad, and that it was no problem, and he would just send it back to Counterpoint. Charley was his name, and he was a really nice guy, but I don't believe he is in business anymore.

Apart from having my friend's kids strum my Benz Micro Glider II's cantilever like a guitar string, (thus breaking it of course - but he paid for the replacement), that is the only, (and worst), accident I've ever had with my audio equipment.

My two cents worth.

I have had my share of problems with buying used equipment, but we won't count those because once they were repaired I never had any other problems.

I was changing the digital cable between my transport and DAC when static electricity blew the output chip in the transport. Madrigal repaired it quickly and inexpensively.

My Audio Research M300 monos arced a tube which in turn blew little pieces of resistor all over the room which also damaged a trace on the circuit board.

Other than that I have had good luck in over 40 years of enjoying stereo equipment.

An old Dynaco ST-35 blew up and destroyed my Linn Tukans.
Boo-hoo.