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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
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.
dudeone
13 posts
 
Many years ago,a friend of mine and his girl friend came to my home for a visit. The girl friend walked directly towards my rig in the living room. The Nakamichi 700 cassette deck required the pushing of a button to open the cassette drawer. The young lady tried to force the draw oprn by pulling on it. Before I said anything,my friend told her not to touch the equipment.
Has anyone had the experience of someone removing a record from the jacket,then the sleeve and handling the playing surface? The information is on the jacket,why is this necessary?
merganser
216 posts
 
Simple answer, NO!
kennyt's avatar
kennyt
1,226 posts
 
Are you guys for real???

My main rig is easily operated by my wife and two step daughters (and has been since they were 10 and 14) thanks to a good universal remote.

My rig is to be used and enjoyed by all, friends at [parties usually don't know how to operate it manually, and that's fine, so I keep the remote out.

I am really surprised so many of you freak out if someone touches your system!
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