I always do something stupid...


...I have a pretty nice system and it is important to me. I spend hours researching tweaking and getting it right. I spend even more time listening to it of course. I am a pretty careful and meticulous person in most things.

So...why is it that everytime I get a new piece of expensive equipment or a new cable or whatever, I always manage to do something you are not supposed to do. Like turning off the pre-amp before the power amps and getting a loud pop. Or leaving an amplifier on and unplugging the interconnect attached to it at the pre-amp. Or forgetting that the interconnects to the subwoofer are JUST long enough and trying to move the subwoofer (and thus stressing the interconnects) without unplugging them. Or SIMPLY NOT NOTICING THAT THE $!@*# VOLUME IS UP TOO HIGH BEFORE I PUSH PLAY ON THE TRANSPORT. I could go on.

Point being, I've never really screwed anything up, but it's not from lack of "rying." Is this just me? I realize I've opened myself up to cruelty on this one...
dgaylin
Happens to the best and worst of us - probably because none of us are dispassionate about our hobby and we get excited to try the new tweak, cable, position, next album, etc. and forget the logical sequences. I have made most of the same errors you describe at some point.

My worst offense so far is that I was hooking up my bare speaker cable ends in the back of amp by feel and managed to arc across positive and negative terminals (I apparently don't feel that good). When I turned my amp back on the sound came out muted, I turned the volume up (DOOH!) and all sound stopped. I opened up the amp and two of tree fuses were toast. Thank God and engineers for fuses. The silver lining is that I replaced the stock fuses with HiFi Tuning silver jobs for an overall improvement in sound. I fitted my cables with banana plugs to eliminate the chance of doing that particular stupid thing again.
All -- thanks for the stories! Very reassuring -- or scary depending upon how you look at it I guess :-)

A friend of mine used to have a sign up by his bedroom mirror "pants first, then shoes" Maybe we should all take a lesson from the airline pilots and have a checklist. NAH that would take the excitement away.

I'm in my mid 40ies -- old enough to claim senior moments? Why not....it's always a good excuse with my kids.

Hey Dodge, no harm done, I knew you were kidding although there is some truth to your joke. Actually I have't messed anything up with all this bumbling, but mostly dumb luck has saved me so far as others have noted.
I used a nutdriver to lightly tighten up my speaker terminals on my Home Theater amp. Why I needed to get them wrench tight I don't know, but as you would guess it I broke one of the post in half. I thought I was a good judge of torque but I was wrong. Ended up with a four channel amp for the time being. I will never do that again. Anybody need a Sherbourn 4/1500?