[nathanm]

I wasn't sure if this should go here or Town Square.  Well whatever...

I got to thinking recently that nearly every piece of gear I bought within the last two years or so has been broken in one way or another.  It's quite a comedy of errors in retrospect!  I thought it would be fun if people shared their heartbreaking stories of 'gear tragedies'.  Be it shipping damage, foolish visitors poking in speaker cones, cats knocking over stands, kids cranking the volume all the way up etc.  Stuff like that.

Anyway, I'll list mine in quasi-chronological order.  I apologize for the length!

My first amp, a NAD 3225PE.  Still works faithfully to this day, but the only thing I did to it was crack the circuit board by once rack mounting it.  I managed to break the trace of one channel of the phono input, hence no sound from one channel.  At the time I thought it was the cartridge of the turntable which was given to me by a friend.  I ended up trashing the TT not knowing the amp was the culprit!  Doh!

Bought a pair of Norh marble 7.0s for a whopping 2 grand.  Never spent that kind money on audio gear before.  Whilst removing the drivers to have a go at active biamping one of the speakers toppled over backwards off the foot stool I had it sitting on.  One solid CLUNK later my pricey speaker was cracked.  An attempt to get it fixed at a marble repair store was met with the reply, "Oh, it's a speaker?  Well we don't fix those!"  *sigh* It lived out the rest of it's life embalmed in duct tape and was finally sold at a loss of $1400.

Bought a used pair of Norh 6.6.  Nothing too serious with these aside from the crossover boards falling off.  Their doom was yet to come...

Bought a used pair of LeAmps.  Upon first try one of them didn't work and it needed an 'open the case and look intently at it whilst jiggling a few things here and there and close it again' trick.  Worked fine after that.  A slightly objectionable amount of noise was apparent as there was a resistor value changed.  So I wanted to return it to factory spec.  I got the value of part to get, ordered it and attempted to solder it in myself.  Found a dead moth carcass inside one of the amps.  Interesting!  I managed to botch up this seemingly simple soldering job utterly. I destroyed a trace on the circuit board, globbed solder and almost melted nearby capacitors and just generally fucked the whole thing up.  Then, after neglecting to TEST the amp in any way I proceeded to plug in one of the Norh 6.6s and flipped the switch!  POP!  40 volts of DC straight into the woofers, burning out the voice coils instantly and creating a wonderful burning electronics smell that filled the room.  

The LeAmp was eventually fixed by the skills of my EE friend Mark who brought over a proper soldering iron and together we did the job right.  It's not pretty inside, but it works.  One of the traces had to be jumpered with wire.  The sad part is, Curt of IRD was more than willing to have me send the amp to their North Carolina place for fixing.  I should have taken him up on the offer! Heh!

So I thought this was a great opportunity to upgrade the drivers.  I bought some Vifas a few notches up the scale for like a hundred bucks each.  Didn't fit by a couple millimeters.  Later bought equivalent cheap drivers and replaced both the woofers and tweeters just in case those were fried too.  One of the pricey woofers was damaged in shipping - still trying to sort that out with Part Express.

Bought a Michell Gyro turntable off eBay.  This has been flawless aside from when the cable fell out of the tonearm, ripping off the delicate, hair-like leads inside.  I did not even for a moment think about fixing this myself and immediately handed it off to Mark, who sometimes solders ICs the size of a salt grain onto circuit boards.  He did an excellent job and I pray that damn plug stays put!

Bought some used ASL Wave 8s.  Very poor packing job.  Amps floating around loosely in a sea of foam peanuts and nothing more.  Minor dents on the case, and a  smashed pair of vacuum tubes.  One amp was much louder than the other.  Bought new tubes.  No change.  Sent amp to a fella in ORY-GON for lookin' at.  After a period it was determined the transformers were busted.  Replacement amp sent back. At this time I bought another pair of used Wave 8s which were amazingly fine and then I ordered one more to complete the set.  One of these had a rattle in the case which turned out to be a resistor that fell off the board! This is next on my amplifier resistor resoldering project list! *run away!*

I wanted to get a decent cassette deck to play my fairly good sized cassette collection on as well as do some recording.  My old one, which I borrowed from a friend in high school and still haven't returned, had served its purpose and was ready to be put out to pasture. I bought a Tascam 112mkII on eBay.  Played fine, but the recording quality was for shit.  Sent back to the dealer whence it came and sat in their warehouse for about 2 months completely ignored after they "fixed" it.  After finally getting it back I realized the recording was still hosed.  Returned the deck and demanded my money back.

Bought a pair of Tannoy DMT-10s on Audiogon.  These were also a victim of Mailboxes Etc.'s shoddy work.  Forty or so pounds of speakers packed in giant boxes with nothing but foam peanuts inside!  One speaker was fine, but the other sported what appears to be an axe hit to the top edge of the baffle.  Luckily the cabinet itself was still intact and I considered it cosmetic damage.  I turned them upside down so you can't see the would-be death blow.

Recently bought a Nakamichi ZX-9 cassette deck after being turned off by the previous Tascam debacle.  Packed fine, no shipping damage, and it worked right out of the box.  The finest sound I have ever heard from cassette deck I might add.  Absolutely great sound from both playback and recording.  Played tapes I thought were beyond repair without a complaint!  But then suddently the bias thingy stopped working and record mode no longer functions.  It's a cassette deck curse!  Ahhh!

--edit: fixed some spelling errors, and incomplete sentence.--

This is just the audio gear, I won't even go into the computer catastrophes!

So let's hear it guys, show us the war wounds!

[byteme]

First, look at my avatar - that was brand spankin' new.

Second, Sony DVP-S7700 DVD player for a transport.  Found a great deal used on ebay, everything supposedly mint.  Arrived packed by the people who got fired at Nathan's Mailboxes Etc. above since there were no peanuts involved, only loosely balled up newspaper!!  Large dent in the top, big scratch or two, other than that works fine.

Third, a pair of Mapleshade records clearview ultrathin blah blah blah cables, arrived, didn't work - unscrewed the end of the connect to find the hair thin wire had broken out of the screw down.  had to repair that.  A week later the other one broke.  Had to fix that as well...

Other than that I've been pretty lucky with all the crap I've run through my system over the past two years!

[Juan R]

After Nathanm story there is no way  someone can match that. even did not happen to me and I want to cry.

[MaxCast]

Gee whiz nathan,  that's a lot of crap to go through.

My only story is a dented Carver amp which was a victum of poor packing.  It was boxed with newspaper wads, strips of cardboard and plastic grocery bags, and not very many at that.

I know ups handles a lot of boxes, but they toss everything like it was a brick.  They should deduct all damage claims from their pension contribution.

[JohnR]

I've only had one real mishap that I can recall... anyone recognize this?

[MaxCast]

Yea, that's your kitchen, isn't it?

[JohnR]

Hah, I can't think of a single clever response to that one!

[Hantra]

I have blown up some stuff in the past.  In fact, when I take something apart, and tweak on it, I fully do not expect it to power back up.  

The worst I have had though is a phono cartridge.  I went and borrowed this Clearaudio Goldmund cartridge from my friend.  It looks just like the Accurate, and Insider, but it says Goldmund on it.  Anyhow, my boy has a couple, and he got them as part of a package with some old broken Goldmund tables.  he didn't have much in them at all, so he said he'd sell it to me for $300 if I like it.  

So, I go home, and anxiously go to install it in place of my old Ortofon.  I had to remove the stylus guard to get the nuts on. . .  When I go to align it on the protractor, it sits right down on it.  I thought the compliance was just way too low. .  Upon closer inspection, I find the cantilever just hanging out on top of my marbled plinth.  I had snapped the boron right off there.  

It's really really bad when it's YOUR fault.  It's so nauseating when it CAN'T be repaired.  Everything else I have screwed up, I could at least have fixed.  But not this. . .  

Sucks too. .  I couldn't bring myself to tell my buddy b/c he lets me borrow so much gear that he gets in, even if he knows I won't buy it.  I always take good care of it, but this time, I was a moron.  Never BORROW a cartridge from anyone.  

So now, I am in it for $300, and I can't get anything on a trade.  So. . I guess it was a lesson learned. . .

"Dealing out the agony within
charging hard and no one's gonna give in"

B

[JoshK]

I fried a car stereo deck doing my first ever install.  Didn't wrap the wires good enough and they touched when I was trying to push it back into the slot.  Learned to use electrical tape!

A tragically broken Cary V12i amp in a buyer's fiasco....turns out he dropped it pulling out of box and tried to pass it off as shipping damage.

[audiojerry]

my oh my Nathan, can you tally up the total $$$ you've lost with your mishaps? That should really cheer you up.
I hope your amazing saga isn't a continuing story. I'm not sure how to react, so ...          

[KevinW]

Nathan,
Your karma is bound to take a radical swing of pendulum at some point in the near future.  You may want to be in Las Vegas when that happens.  Until then, avoid Tarot Card readings and other fateful portents like the plague.

[Carlman]

Isn't the rule in hifi " it never works flawlessly the first time " ?  I could have told you the Nak was messed up as soon as it worked flawlessly without any additional enticement.

My damage stories are similar to Nathan's....

A couple of the most recent:
Preamp... Bought a Melos MA-111 in good condition from Agon or ebay.  When it arrived, the transformer had come loose from its case, the face plate was off, and bent.  It was packed in what looked like a cardboard pancake.  At one time it was probably a box.  The packing was OK but, not good enough.  It was plagued throughout its year-long visit in my system.  I eventually sold it back to the guy who sold it to me at a loss.  oh well.

Speakers... oh, the speakers.... I bought the best speakers I've ever heard in my life for about $3,k.  Wow, that's a lot of f'ing money for sound... (for me; all at once)  I picked up the speakers at a store, opened one box and was satisfied with how they looked.  Got them home and the one I DIDN'T look at had little light colored spots all over it and a big scrape on one side.  oh man was I dissapointed.  However, the manufacturer had the dealer come to my home and replaced them with another pair within a week or 2.  They're perfect.

Amp... The long-awaited AKSA... I asked Hugh (AKSA prez) to essentially do all the hard stuff.  Hugh went above and beyond what I asked and mounted all the main parts of the amp in a case, with heatsinks mounted...  All I had to do was add a few parts, add transformers, and voila! AKSAfication.  Instead, I think it had been dropped off the back of an airplane from about 500 feet.  The heatsink was badly bent, all wires had come loose in the jarring, and it just wasn't pretty.  However, again, the manufacturer came through and made it right.  Hugh sent another heatsink immediately.  I resoldered a few wires and had some fun.  No big deal in the end but, wow that was quite a hit the amp received.

Miscellaneous... Things I don't care about arrive perfectly... books, other odds and ends that aren't breakable... all come in what looks like a brand new box that was carried with dry, feather-hands from across the street to me... and placed on a satin pillow on my doorstep.

There's been some other problems but, these were the most recent and most spine-tingly.  

[gary]

one of my rocket 750's took a nice shot from a forklift tang, regards of ups

http://forum.av123.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=276&papass=&sort=1&thecat=500

of course, i ended up getting the pair for $675 so i didn't complain much  
-gary

[nathanm]

Jerry - unfortunately it seems to be a continuing story.  Why just this morning I tried a different position of the speaker stands and one of the Tannoys tipped over behind my back and scared the hell out of me as it hit the ground!  Only damage was a banana plug that got sheared off.  Quickly replaced and back in order.  Gotta get some sharper spikes and lead shot in those damn things...  This happened to be the "axe blow" speaker too - maybe it is feeling suicidal after its injury and doesn't want to go on any longer?

I just realized that after this post no manufacturer here is ever gonna let me sign up for a demo pair of speakers ever again!  I hope the Zu guys aren't reading this!  Maybe I will just open the top box flap and listen to them that way.  Probably safer!

I could have told you the Nak was messed up as soon as it worked flawlessly without any additional enticement.

Yes, it was too good to be true I suppose.  That one is worth fixing though, it's a keeper.  I've never heard a tape deck play with so little tape speed deviation.  And the frequency extremes are excellent.  I only wish some of my old tapes hadn't been stretched out and semi-ruined by lesser equipment.

[jqp]

As told on Harmonic Discord, I was a victim of the famous shearing Thompson CSF 7294 Output device (sheared by the leverage from the case, not a fault with the chips themselves):

"The day I received my CD-1 and ACA was the day I blew up both of my Multiamps. (  ) The act of moving them around sheared the amplifier chips a bit, and one chip actually exploded. The others merely smoldered a painful death. This phenomenon became a known defect of the Multiamps"

In the process one of my Marble 9.0 tweeters blew out.

That was a sad day indeed. Until the arrival of the Le amps I was back to using my Yamaha receiver!

Norh came through as they always do in the end with their first rate customer service. They sent me a new tweeter. The Multiamps were of course refurbished and given a new case architecture by Norh by way of Curt of IRD, and they are better than the originals.

[byteme]

I just realized that after this post no manufacturer here is ever gonna let me sign up for a demo pair of speakers ever again! I hope the Zu guys aren't reading this!  Maybe I will just open the top box flap and listen to them that way. Probably safer!...

There is now NO QUESTION you are getting them last on their SE Wisconsin tour.  

[skchow]

Since we're all talking about ebay horror stories let me tell you mine.

Almost a year back, I won an auction for Kenwood KT-715 tuner.  The tuner was stated to be in good working condition with working lights, etc.  I paid roughly around 40 dollars in shipping coast to coast and it arrived almost a week after than it was promised.  Of course, the day it arrived, it was pouring outside, though USPS was kind enough to leave it in an area that wasn't wet.  I opened up the box, and inside, there was no foam whatsoever, and with only the tuner wrapped up in several layers of bubble wrap, it was probably bouncing around nicely during its long trip.  As it turns out, the tuning knob was horribly bent out of the shape, the power switch hit the front face so hard it left indentations, and worse of all none of the lights worked.  I should have demanded a refund (including shipping) at that point and threatened to leave negative feedback.  Instead, I thought that if I was to return it I'd have to pay shipping again, so I decided to take a stab at fixing it.  I opened it up, and after some twisting, prying, and a dead spider later, the tuner was semi working.  Should the tuner have been built with today's standards, it would have probably not be working at all.   The seller was not terribly apologetic and instead blamed USPS (when it was his shitty packaging to begin with) and wish me the best in fixing the tuner.

My other experience involved purchasing a Music Hall MMF-7 from audiogon from a guy in Alaska.  He was extremely meticulous in his packaging, except he forgot to tie down the motor.  When I opened up the box to the turntable, there were some pretty nasty gashes on the board as well as on the dust cover from the heavy motor bouncing around.  I emailed the guy explaining what happened, and before I could respond telling him that the turntable still worked, he sent me good amount of what I paid him back to me while apologizing profusely, and let me know know that if it didn't work to let him know so he can pay me back the rest.  In the end I felt the damages didn't warrant the excessive amount of money he refunded to me, and I re-refunded him some of the money back, and we both ended up feeling better.

Sunny.

[srmc]

I had taken my equalizer (hey it was the 80's and I didn't know better) back to the GoodGuys for service.  I was told that they would call me when it was ready to be picked up.  Well, I never received a telephone call.  Instead, they decided to do me the favor of wrapping it in two layers of bubble wrap and mailing it to me.  They didn't even put it in a box!  They just slapped the mailing label on the outside of the bubble wrap and kicked it out the door!  By the time it got to my house half of the sliders were broken.  The store manager was apologetic, and they gave me a new unit, but how stupid could they be?

SRMC

[JLM]

A recent mishap:  while cleaning my equipment I sprayed glass cleaner onto the top of my Rotel receiver (that has small open slots), it immediately shut down.  good news, I was able to turn it back on within a minute.

Worse mishap:  dropped my nice Thorens turntable with custom arm 20 years ago.  as CD's were just becoming popular and didn't have a big LP collection yet after college, I turned away from vinyl for good.

Hope someone learns from all these accounts.