Meanest Thing You've Ever Done to Audio Gear?

Zonker92

Zonker92

All shiny and chrome
No judging allowed here:

As teenagers, back in the stone age, I was at a friend's house when he bought some nice new gear and wanted to get rid of his old crap plastic 70s all-in-one unit. We took it out back and my friend stood in one spot and swung the stereo around by the power cord in a big circle, until it got going really fast. Then he dipped the arc down for an instant just where a big builder intersected the circle, and bashed the stereo against the rock. It sent off some pieces, then my friend got it going fast again and dipped it again into the rock. He did this half a dozen times until the yard was covered in plastic bits and the only thing on the end of the cord was a shard of plastic.

Another friend of mine worked in a pawn shop as a teen, and he and his co-worker were supposed to lug a bunch of old heavy receivers to another building. This job entailed carrying the receivers downstairs, but they got lazy and just started sliding the receivers down the stairs; they'd crash at the bottom. Mind you, some of these were really nice units from the 70s. <cringe>

So fees up: What have you done that makes you blush and shudder, in hindsight?
 
One thing that still haunts me is that I sold my JVC setup after my divorce. I really enjoyed it & I should have worked harder to keep it, but I was in a zone from being married thirteen years & didn't think of the future. Sure wish I could get a do over!

Also, before things really turned sour & we were really starting to drift, one time we got into it, I ripped out the guts of my old Electrophonic/Morse juke box's TT. This was before I got my system.

Well, I still have it & it often reminds me of when you get overheated you can do some stupid things.

Jus' opening up the flood gates! :D

Rome
 
Hocked loogies and urinated on an old concert monitor while playing really bassy rap. Something about it flinging up and down was cool to me and my friends. Yeah... we were gross little kids.
 
Where to start? AR15, shotgun, exploding targets and a Henry 45 long colt. All unleashed on a pile of '90's craptasrptic equipment. Also a few old computers and printers thrown in for good measure. :uzi::naughty: It was glorious! :rockon:
 
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Back when I had a paper route, on my way home my wagon was empty so I'd pick up all the old radios and phonographs left out for the trashman.:yes:

When I got home my brother and I would take out all the tubes and have a hand grenade shoot-out on the local rock pile.

Oh the tragedy of it all now....
:no:

Bob
 
I used to go down to the local landfill and climb under the fence, run up behind the bulldozer and drag old TVs, amplifiers, speakers and stuff down to the fence whereupon I would pull out all the valves and throw them at rocks to make the biggest pops. I'd pull out huge 12" alnico drivers from speakers, radio-grams and TV's and rip the magnets off. Picture tubes also made a big bang.

It all stopped when a guy was about to throw a gorgeous Hotpoint 5 valve bakelite radio onto the tip. He gave it to me instead and I took it home on my push scooter with my foot holding it still so it didn't fall on the road.

My dad helped me clean it out and we made a new fabric speaker grill for it, turned it on and it was our garage radio for 20 years. I was about 10yo and have been rescuing and repairing things ever since.

That said, I stripped a lot of turntables for parts in the 90s/00s.
 
Well.....a friend had ESS AMT-1 speakers driven by a Marantz 2270 and complained about fuses going out when he tried to turn it up to '11'.

We brought a Marantz 250/3300 over and it got a bit louder, but still torched the fuse.

So we tinfoiled the fuses.....and then it got LOUD.....until all the highs went 'bye-bye'.

Quick trip down to the Bay Area the next day, new AMT diaphragm and all was well.

The service tech played the repaired speaker on Phase Linear 400.....LOUD and with no distress. The tech claimed that the Marantz amps did not like the ESS AMT and that caused the amp to oscillate.
 
I threw a Philips GA-212 out the third floor window and it landed in the street whereupon a car ran over it. I was happy about that.
 
I had a sharps tape deck in 1990 that cep eating tapes that I kicked across the room. Trouble is I had no shoes on an broke my big toa it still gives me Greif to this day. Bloody well made thing hardy dented the tape deck and the swine still chewed tapes. It ended up in the bin.
 
I raped three different classic Tandberg Model 64x reel to reel players:

I bought them from a collector under the guise of restoration, ripped the nice Telefunkens tubes out of them, and threw their bodies in a dumpster behind a supermarket. Lord I have sinned.
I eventually sold the tubes for 3x what I payed for the units and kept one strong pair of ca.1960 12AX7's for myself. I might be mean, but "business is business"!
 
About a year ago, right before I joined/discovered AK, I said a sad farewell to my Sony STR-D990, which had been the backbone of my system since I bought it new in 1991.

After surviving my college years, then living over a salty decade, beachfront, and finally house in the rainy, damp mountains, it finally flashed its last PROTECTION. I pulled off the volume knob, and lowered it into the trashcan.

A few weeks later I bought my Yamaha, joined AK, and learned that a $10 can of deoxit may have been all it needed to keep it going another 25.

The volume knob is still in my drawer in the kitchen. Might use it for a project someday.

Now I has a sad. :(
 
I bought some interesting audio accessories and shared their attributes with those on AK. It was not a pretty picture.

Hurt their feelings somewhat terrible.

Lesson learned. There are some things AK people don't need or want to know about.

Regards
Mister Pig
 
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