Mourn with me

ScottMayo · « **on:** 24 Dec 2005, 03:01 pm »

My wife totalled her car (she's fine, but the car kissed a guardrail, experienced Engine Shift and Frame Warp... game over for the car). As a result, some audio plans I had have gone on hold. A replacement car comes first.

As a result, plans to buy some new amps from NuForce are delayed. So when I replaced my old Infinity QLS-1's, and moved them up the stairs and into the living room, there was no amps waiting to drive them. They just sort of sat there, looking kind of forlorn and dusty. These were once-proud speakers, speakers any audiophile would be glad to own in their day, and not so bad these days, either.

So I just hooked them up, to a receiver I had unused.

Well, it works. But the sound coming out is... it's just sad, that's what it is. Never let anyone tell you that the quality of the electronics is an unimportant part of the chain. I'm getting slush and bloat by the shovelfull. And you walk into that room and you see these proud old speakers, 6' tall walnut towers, being driven by this cheap-tailed mid-fi Panny receiver...

It's just wrong in so many ways.

Bill Baker · « **Reply #1 on:** 24 Dec 2005, 03:06 pm »

Very glad to hear your wife is okay, that is the most important thing here.

We now bow our heads in moment of silence for your audio situation

Charles Calkins · « **Reply #2 on:** 24 Dec 2005, 03:09 pm »

scottmayo:
In all the years I've been into audio I have found that I get the best results with new amps. CD players are second.

Cheers
Charlie

_scotty_ · « **Reply #3 on:** 24 Dec 2005, 06:39 pm »

Scott, there is a good chance that your Infinitys will sound a lot better if they are driven by your Bryston power amp. Some of the Infinity speakers had anything but a benign impedance curve.
Scotty

ScottMayo · « **Reply #4 on:** 24 Dec 2005, 07:05 pm »

Quote from: _scotty_

Scott, there is a good chance that your Infinitys will sound a lot better if they are driven by your Bryston power amp. Some of the Infinity speakers had anything but a benign impedance curve.
Scotty

They sound *much* better that way! But the Brystons are running my listening room gear- VMPS RM/x and RM-30's. The Infinities got kicked out of that room because they weren't keeping up with the VMPS gear, so now they provide background music up in the living room. The receiver is just insult to injury.

Anyone know a good Infinity speaker re-builder? Someday when I have cash again, I'd like to get them fixed up, just for old time's sake.

And yes, the Infinity is a wicked, evil speaker from any amp's point of view. I got into Bryston because it has the vise-like grip and power needed to run that kind of load.

James Romeyn · « **Reply #5 on:** 24 Dec 2005, 08:43 pm »

Very glad to hear no serious injuries. My old philospher friend used to say the only thing worse than divorce is a car accident with serious injury.

This is only to remind everyone how bad a bad car wreck is. Don't read if you dislike gory (I'm a fireman). A recent serious car accident I went to was one car racing south on Junipero Serra against another. We arrived about 2am on a Saturday. Every SFSU police man, city cop, highway patrol & Golden Gate Rec Area federalie within miles had already arrived to see this one. The heavy fog was mixed with tons of smoke from the several million flares laid down by the cops. The scene is ethereal, other-wordly, like Apocolypse Now (while looking for the right place to park, we broke a mirror off a patrol car that was parked badly with no lights on).

So the victim's car (Japanese compact) hits a tree with a trunk about 4' in diameter growing in the middle of the center divide. He apparently got sideways accelerating on the slick tarmac, jumped the curb for the center divide, & is sliding sideways on the divide. Till the driver side of his car slams into the tree. The tree yawns & never wakes from its slumber. The front half of the car, everything, & I mean literally everything, breaks off from the firewall forward & keeps sliding about 150' down 280. The driver's feet (we have to make a thorough search to make sure he was alone) are dangling out into the cold, damp, flare-glowed air with no shoes. He was, as we say in the business, Dee-Are-Tee (dead right there).

eric the red · « **Reply #6 on:** 24 Dec 2005, 11:12 pm »

I was on the Grapevine traveling north a few days ago and was passed by the Acura in question here that the CHP officer was chasing. Unfortunately, about ten miles later we came upon the accident scene at the bottom of the hill. http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/13481776.htm

Rocket · « **Reply #7 on:** 25 Dec 2005, 12:08 am »

Hi Jim,

I used to be a state p.o. and i will never forget my first fatal traffic accident. The faces of his grieving relatives are for ever imprinted in my memory

.

Scottmayo, glad to hear that your wife is okay. Was your vehicle insured?

Rocket

ScottMayo · « **Reply #8 on:** 25 Dec 2005, 01:26 am »

Quote from: Rocket

Hi Jim,

I used to be a state p.o. and i will never forget my first fatal traffic accident. The faces of his grieving relatives are for ever imprinted in my memory .

Scottmayo, glad to hear that your wife is okay. Was your vehicle insured?

Rocket

All insured.

Since we're talking about accidents, Jan (wife) and I were in one a number of years ago that didn't go quite as well. We were on a two lane road, and two school busses were coming up the opposite way in the other lane. Someone behind them decided the pass the busses. Around a curve. Going very fast.

With a large hunk of car suddenly coming at me, and a school bus to the left, my options were a very immediate right, or impact. I went right and my RX-7 took down some saplings before coming to a stop. I was fine; Jan got whipped by the sudden stop just hard enough to crack a vertebra in her back. She got confined to bed for a number of weeks and there's a spot on her back that still gets sore in weather changes, 20+ years later.

Which is much better than what would have happened if I'd stayed in lane and pitted my RX-7 against his american steel junker. I'm pretty sure that would have been 3 fatalities and a lot of injured school kids.

The car safety ads when I were growing up said "Watch out for the other guy". I'm here to tell you the other guy is a moron from the shallow end of the gene pool and can't be trusted to act rationally for as long as it takes to blink. This is something I try to remember, every time I turn a key in the ignition.