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
Audphile - Oh my God! When you have such guests you should not only protect your stereo but also TV, microwave, kitchen mixer and perhaps even iron.
Anyone I have over is more than welcome to use my system, with or without my presence. It's pretty well automated with the universal remote.

I did make the mistake of leaving my turntable out during a party once, and afterwards, my Denon 103's cantilever was pointing to left field... oh well, though. It was a fun party.

Other than that, I've never had a problem. I'm kind of surprised about all the "hands off" policies. Other than turntable cartridges, or people turning volume knobs all the way up (common sense?), what's gonna break? Nothing
Audphile....I was rolling on the floor laughing my guts out reading your post regarding your buddy's girlfriend.

That one goes into the hall of fame.

For those of you that suggest removing my turntable when entertaing guests.....I don't think so. It's much easier to say don't touch than to take down and set up again.

No one so far has been offended when I asked them to not touch. If someone does get offended, I probably wouldn't want them back as a guest anyway if they couldn't be respectful and understanding.
My 8 year old boy uses my main system plus he has his own;) When younger he messed about with my loudspeakers so I built a pair of horns he could play in without damaging them...He would sit inside my bass horns rolling his hotwheels. He tried climbing up my Oris 150 horn array his feet got about 3 ft off the ground before slipery car paint made him lose his rock climbers grip. Wont let him touch my TT but he knows tubes and amps are hot and CDs need care or they wont work he learned this the hard way with his costly vidio games and DVDs. I have a local shop buff out the damage ones.
NO NEVER. That's why I have an $1,100.00 system in the same room with my $12,000.00 system. Volume up full with just a click away from full crank? Your foolish guest will probably try to sue you for ear damage, on top of the brain damage he may already have or about to receive. Be careful and have a sign posted just like people have on their classic cars.