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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
 
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.
johnk's avatar
johnk
1,490 posts
 
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.
polk432
1,116 posts
 
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.
yioryos's avatar
yioryos
723 posts
 
Nobody touches my stereo system.My wife and two sons are welcome to use it but they know I am mental with my gear and prefer to use the seconday system that is also in the same room.
Audiophile 1,you made me lough so hard!Yes some people are idiots,good thing you saved the Nautilus.
George
lissnr
351 posts
 
Great thread. No one touches my 'alter' unless I'm standing next to them showing them how I do it, step by step...and unless it's a very trusted and competent friend who assures me of his deepest respect for it, he won't be handling anything more than the remote anyway. There are no 'parties' in my listening room; parties are an abundance of people listening to music in a background mode. In my listening room the only sound is the music and an occasionally brief pause for a few comments between songs or discs or albums if I'm sharing my beloved sweet spot with some astounded lucky guest. There is no other reason to be in the listening room, but to listen. I keep a better-than-average secondary system available separately OUTSIDE of it for all other music purposes including social events or entertaining. Generally speaking, one does not let someone use their most prized possessions, be it a Harley, their ultra rare 1970 hemi Challenger (a dream car on my short list) or in my case, my prized speedboat that 99.9999% of the experienced boat owners of America couldn't safely handle for 10 seconds without wiping out...But I digress. Besides, after the sequence of un-muting the pre-amp,the Dac, turning on all 4 amps [of my tri-amped system] (monos included) and powering up my sub there's still a half hour worth of tube warm up period before I cue up the first disc. I agree with Mitch4t and Rockadanny on this one, I don't touch yours and you don't touch mine. With equipment this specialized, sensitive and expensive, it's just common sense and common respect. Happy Lissn'n.
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