1. Home
  2. amps-preamps
  3. 1216891756

Do You Allow Anyone Else To Operate Your Rig?

No one touches my system...period.

At a dinner party about a year ago, I had a cd playing in the background. When the cd finished, I was busy in the kitchen and entertaining guests. After about 15 minutes of no music, a guest felt that he should start the music up again. I looked up and saw this guy pushing buttons and turning knobs trying to figure out how to get the system going. I must have given him a frosty stare that would have made Medusa proud. My 11 year-old son saw my expression and felt sorry for the guy and went over and told him, "sir, no one is allowed to touch my dad's stuff".

Do other family members play your rig? Do you allow guests to operate your system?

Sorry, but no one is allowed to touch my stuff and I don't apologize for it. I don't even allow anyone to dust it off. Once the housekeeper dusted off my turntable and bent the stylus, ruined it....$500 bucks gone just like that. I never said a word to her about it, I just told her not to ever dust of my equipment again.

In another incident someone tried to play an LP while I was not watching. He got the turntable going but couldn't figure out how to get sound from the system. When I went over to see what was going on, he had the volume turned all the way up to maximum but still had no sound...of course he had no idea what a phono preamp was and of course it was not turned on. Had he turned the source knob one turn to my tuner which was switched on, he probably would have done serious damage to my speakers and scared the heck out of all of my guests with a loud blast. I politely told him not to ever touch my stuff again.

I've never had a guest over that was an audiophile.
mitch4t
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
4,163 posts
 
Just to be argumentative, if your system is comparable to a jetliner cockpit, and yes, someone did clearly imply that to be the case, then why would you leave it out at a party unattended? If your system is that complex and that valuable wouldn't it have been prudent to disassemble it and store in a temperature controlled underground nuke proof vault rather than expose it to party goers? If that's too extreme then at least put the system behind a velvet rope with an armed guard.

Cleaneduphippy, I don't own a Harley, but I do let licensed motorcyclist who I know ride my Yamaha or Kawasaki. Doing so involves some risk, but I value my relationship with these people more than I value the motorcycle. It's a trust thing.
siliab
356 posts
 
No one would even think of using it, but that is because every member of the family has at least one system of their own to use in additon to the home theater system that is for everyone's enjoyment. The home theater system has a CD changer that we put on infinite repeat so that there is never dead air during parties.
cleaneduphippy
323 posts
 
Ohhwy61,

Key words in your responds to me is "licensed motorcyclist", that says to me you don't let someone take out your "Yamaha or Kawasaki" without at least a certain degree of knowledge, which is the point I was trying to make.
mitch4t's avatar
mitch4t OP
1,486 posts
 
I bought a SqueezeBox and a Rhapsody subscription. I now pre-program the SqueezeBox to play uninterrupted music all evening long. Now, no lulls in the music and guests are less likeley to 'help me out' and re-start the music.

Before the Squeezebox, my only sources for music were the turntable and a single-disc cd player. The tuner wasn't suitable when guests were over.

It seems a source that could give you 4-5 hours of uniterrupted music like a 5-disc player, a streaming device or a hard-drive based device could alleviate the the whole 'don't touch my stuff' thing while entertaining.
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
3,575 posts
 
Cleaneduphippy - Owners of mentioned Harleys wouldn't allow another person, even very responsible and good biker, to ride/borrow their bike. It has nothing to do with the risk of damage - just being possessive.

Most of the people here wouldn't allow stranger/guest to touch their system even if there would be no risk of damage at all.
More to discover