Lunatic Moments

[Beowulf57]

Just for fun...a thread for all our moments of foolishness. In medieval times the King always had a Fool in the court to remind him of his fallibility and that his power and authority depended on something greater than himself.

In this spirit, my lunatic moment :o::

After upgrading my DIY system with 2405's, 3106's, HL92's and an L-pad for the MF (LE85's), I was happy with the CD/SACD sound, but the high end didn't seem quite balanced with LP's. So one afternoon I sat down to listen and tweak. First up, a Brahms Serenade (#1)...hmm, doesn't sound quite right, highs perhaps a bit over-emphasized. Suddenly from the other room my wife called out, "That sounds terrible!" Golly, I thought, what could it be? Hey, maybe with the new tweeters I need to adjust the VTA on the tonearm.

So, I fooled around with this for a few days and found where it sounded worse, but I couldn't get it sounding better!:banghead: Also found I was dialing in more bass boost with my Yamaha C-80 preamp when listening to satellite programming, movies, etc. What in the world is going on here?

One day, I got fed up and for the first time in a few days, played an SACD just to relax and enjoy myself and let the frustration settle: Diana Krall (The Girl in the Other Room)...one of my favourites: "Temptation". WTF :biting:...it sounds terrible...where's that wonderful BASS?! Keep in mind that this is totally unequalized sound from my Linn Unidisk SC direct to my amplifiers.

So, I stuck my ear down by the left and right channel woofers: no sound whatsoever from the right channel! A spring loaded connector on the LX5 crossover had popped off and the wire was hanging out there in space.

Back on it went and back came that lovely music!:applaud:

So there's my Foolish Lunatic moment...anyone else?;)

[hjames]

Just for fun...a thread for all our moments of foolishness. In medieval times the King always had a Fool in the court to remind him of his fallibility and that his power and authority depended on something greater than himself.

So there's my Foolish Lunatic moment...anyone else?;)

Sure - I'm game!!:applaud:

Well, I had been running 2 subs in my TV room - fed LFE channel from the HK receiver to a Y adapter and then both channels of a Citation 22 - Left went to an M&K sub on the left wall by Emma, Right to an B-380 on the right wall by me. Worked nice for films.

Well, after putting an aquarium in my TV room recently, I had less room so - I put the Citation back into MONO mode, put the M&K sub in the basement for a while, and moved the B-380 sub into its place on the left. I connected it to the pair of wires there and didn't think much about it - I don't use the subs for music, just for TV and movies.

Well, I redid my equipment rack last weekend, and afterwards did some testing - no subwoofer!! I flipped the TIVO to replay an episode of Numbers - lots of BASS in that show. Got lights on the citation sub amp, but No SOUND afrom the Sub!
Yesterday I pulled the sofa and traced the speaker cable from the Citation to ... no connection!! Tracked the other end and figured I had somehow connected the sub to one of the side-surround cables from when I briefly tried 7.1 surround (just use 5.1 now) ... I hooked the B-380 to the actual SUB output line, powered everything back up and - good SUB!
I have NO IDEA how the non-connected speaker wire didn't get shorted and fry the Citation, but I'm so glad it didn't!

Sheer dumbo luck - :)

[Hoerninger]

... Foolish Lunatic moment...anyone else?;)
I played with the AV-Receicer, had realized different ways of routing with different sonic impressions. But one day it sounded d... s... bad. It was a CD with a male singer. Until then I had always thought that female voices are the most critical. So bad!
Recently i had plugged a second PC to the receiver. But I had mixed playback and record! So the record out of the receiver was terminated with a very low impedance. :(
____________
Peter

[Beowulf57]

Oh, oh! :shock: Your examples are reminding me of other lunatic moments: years ago, I had my tube amps in the basement on a board sitting on top of two old unused speakers. The power switch had been removed and attached to an air vent grating in the living room above. One day I was shifting the amps to a more central location on the board and it tilted, sliding one amp into the concrete wall: with a loud "pop" one of the output tubes was taken out and all hell broke loose upstairs, a.k.a. 60 cycle (still used that term in the good ol' days) hum. :bomb:

I couldn't unplug the amps as I balanced precariously trying to prevent further damage to both amps on my lovely "slide," so I screamed for my wife to "TURN IT OFF!"

She did, and wonder of wonders, no other damage. Replaced the tube and all was well.

[stuck.wilson]

there's nothing worse than prototyping a crossover, and mistakenly rewiring out of phase, being totally excited to give a listen, sitting down, dropping the needle on the record or starting the cd and :blink:

oh.... where's my midrange?!

but i think crossover voicing is MOSTLY :blink: to begin with... particularly with horns... until you start using an RTA.. but even AFTER!

[toddalin]

My typical "Oh sh--" is when I do a bunch of testing/comparison, then realize that I had left the digital processing on that colors the results.

Then I go back and do it again after turning the digital stuff off. :banghead:

[demon]

im using a digital-active-crossover and three amps for my current system. this week i was changing my horns from smallish to more hugeish, and the day before i did that i thought that i might get the wiring of my components really proper -because i had left/right swapped out of the pre-amp and lots a cablechaos on the floor.
i use a big sansui 9o9o for pre >and< as an amp for the midrange:
pre out --> xo -->main in
well, i changed the wrong wires, i changed the "main in", so my rightside horn was playing the left stereo and vice versa.
stupid, but not yet foolish.
the fool came into play the next day when i changed the horns and did not notice that i stereo-swapped the whole midrange -and thought:
HOLY SH!T IT SOUNDS SO GOOD!!!
the fool was actually dancing all around the room, clapping hands...
:applaud:


cheers,
mikey


ps: feels good to tell. thanks for the thread, thanks for posting, too.
pps: yes, i changed the midrange back again...

[Doctor_Electron]

Fooled around with signal cables while system was powered up, disconnected an input to the Dynaco 400. The adhesive joint in one Jubal woofer broke at the cone/spider point (cleanly), and the cone popped out as far as it could go on the surround. WAY out! :banghead: Got lucky & fixed OK with super glue. :D
I had a living room closet dedicated to the stereo, and one day a friend & I were running the system way off the hook volume-wise. :applaud:My ex & her friend started whining about it, :biting: so we barracaded ourselves in the "vault" and cranked it up some more. ;)
Later on that week I percieved a lack of sonic detail from my 4310's, only to find that they had turned the mid & high pads all the way down. :blink:
Meddlers, drat!