I'll start: This happened last night. After plugging an integrated amp into the system the night before and leaving wires around after removing it, I put everything back together and fired up the gear. No left channel. Dang! But that had happened last week and touching the ic fixed it. So I tugged a little on the left ic. Nothing. Dang! The ic has gone bad. I grabbed another pair of ic's, swapped them, and turned everything back on. Nothing. Wow, I must have blown something. Hmm. Are the tubes bad in the left monoblock? Because there's no friendly orange glow. What's this plug sitting here that leads to the amp? Oh, yeah. Maybe I should plug in the amp. They always seem to work better that way. I had unplugged the left monoblock so the integrated could be plugged in. Did I feel dumb? But I was still relieved that the ic's weren't bad.

Next?

 Shipped my Pre-Amp U.P.S. -t - Julien43 19:21:06 09/09/02 (1)
 Good one - psgary 20:41:15 09/09/02 (0)
 Re: What's the stupidest thing you ever did with your gear? - billwjr 19:18:06 09/04/02 (0)

...

Show full thread outline!

 Shipped my Pre-Amp U.P.S. -t - Julien43 19:21:06 09/09/02 (1)
 Good one - psgary 20:41:15 09/09/02 (0)
 Re: What's the stupidest thing you ever did with your gear? - billwjr 19:18:06 09/04/02 (0)
 Forgetting to lock the tailgate on my truck and......... - danj 18:55:11 09/03/02 (0)
 Re: What's the stupidest thing you ever did with your gear? - Timbo in Oz 21:03:28 09/02/02 (0)
 Re: What's the stupidest thing you ever did with your gear? - Don T 08:04:04 09/02/02 (0)
 Re: What's the stupidest thing you ever did with your gear? - rockhead 20:22:38 09/01/02 (0)
 Hey, I ain't stoopid! - dennzio 13:12:35 09/01/02 (0)
 Lunched the stylus of a brandnew Dynavector Ruby while balancing the arm, then ... - Dave Farrell 12:26:37 09/01/02 (2)
 I feel your pain - psgary 19:27:16 09/01/02 (1)
 Funnily enough, I still have the uniplegic Dynavector, in mint condition (stylus notwithstanding) - Dave Farrell 03:12:27 09/02/02 (0)
 Ah yes, the old "forgot to plug it in" scenario. I've done - driver 12:02:44 09/01/02 (0)
 Dropped a 6 ft. pair of line source arrays on the Santa Monica Fwy. - TAFKA Steve 06:16:59 09/01/02 (1)
 if you drive long enough.... - BWM 10:14:41 09/01/02 (0)
 You think THAT'S stupid? - Bagsgroove 00:09:07 09/01/02 (6)
 Re: You think THAT'S stupid? - JeffMO 14:46:56 09/06/02 (0)
 Re: You think THAT'S stupid? Hey Bags! - SETdude 09:10:14 09/01/02 (4)
 Re: You think THAT'S stupid? Hey Bags! - SETdude 09:58:25 09/01/02 (3)
 Never too late... - Bagsgroove 10:30:31 09/01/02 (2)
 Re: Never too late... - SETdude 12:29:41 09/01/02 (0)
 There are a couple of places I can think of but I'll guess - driver 11:31:06 09/01/02 (0)
 I used my system with prototype audio hardware... - Ted Smith 22:12:24 08/31/02 (0)

In a previous life we built a hard disc audio recorder, I don't know what pisses an amp and speakers off more, full rail DC offset or a 3kHz full level square wave. But I can tell you which pisses my ears off the most :)

-Ted

SOLD MY TURNTABLE! (Fortunatly, I didn't get rid of my LPs--had about, oh, say, 8 feet of them. THAT would have been stupid beyond belief!)

Sanity and music returned to me in 1987. There's hope for all of us...

You get those green beans out of your keyboard yet, psgary?

Perfect sound forever. I do recall unlistenable LPs' though.

washing machine, sofa, mattress (lots of mattresses!), armoir, potted tree.....

still looking to find a pair of Maggies in the fast lane.

And LPs are EVERYWHERE! I live about 50 miles past The Middle of Nowhere, VA -- serious hillbilly (uh...I mean "Appalachian American") country, and even here, we've got 1 good used LP store, and gazillions of thrift shops, yard sales, flea markets and the like. Sure, the majority of these kind of LPs are garbage, but Priceless Gems lurk among them...for a buck or two! And millions (literally!) of great used AND new LPs are at your fingertips with the Internet.

The Hunt is half the fun...

One last thing--I know we BELLEGERENT VINYL FANATICS wear on people's nerves sometimes, but over in the Vinyl Asylum we get frequent posts like "How do I get back into LPs?" by people who need to get re-aquainted with the basics. Generally, these posts get helpful replies (Though sometimes, we do hunt these people down, kidnap them, whisk them off to our Secret Vinyl Lair, strip and tie them to a huge turntable, and perform strange vinyl rites over them until they submit...)

To most of the crowd it just looked like a technical glitch that I was able to fix but the guys in the band were snickering when they saw what I was doing.

I was traumatised ...

I live in NW Florida, The Redneck Rivieria. Home of incest and Winstons in a box. It's O.K. Daddy, just don't crush the Winstons!
The box makes life easier. Betcha didn't know that.

Seriously, I've looked for LP's and found very little worth owning.
I might hunt again after I move to SW Florida. Lots of estate sales there. There are truly lost treasures on vinyl that will never be on CD. I'll post a bit on the vinyl forum.

Patrick

left the lid off the tube tuner (receiver with the poweramps off) - to replace one of those gorgeous magic eye tubes the one that fans out for FM Signal strength.

I was momentarily careless about where my fingers were. Bzzzt, just for a microsecond. No damage though.

the dumbest thing ever was not me but what my eldest boy did to my Garrott* Microscanner Denon DL 103D - on his 16th birthday. Yes! It was a difficult night for me!

* (the late Garrott brothers)

(Garrotted? LoL keeping my hands off his neck!)

timbo

and

years ago.....spilling a full bottle of nail polish remover inside the cooling vents of my receiver. It was toast.

or the worst..........

letting my brother borrow some gear. I got it back but it never worked right after that. I think someone had actually peed on my TEAC R2R deck!

I sold my Earth Wind and Fire records. Wish I wouldn't have. Although they would sound crappy on my TT.

Now you better ease up on gary or I'll have to turn up the heat.
Jeff

Julien Therrien
jntherrien@msn.com