Do You Allow Anyone Else To Operate Your Rig?


No one touches my system...period.

At a dinner party about a year ago, I had a cd playing in the background. When the cd finished, I was busy in the kitchen and entertaining guests. After about 15 minutes of no music, a guest felt that he should start the music up again. I looked up and saw this guy pushing buttons and turning knobs trying to figure out how to get the system going. I must have given him a frosty stare that would have made Medusa proud. My 11 year-old son saw my expression and felt sorry for the guy and went over and told him, "sir, no one is allowed to touch my dad's stuff".

Do other family members play your rig? Do you allow guests to operate your system?

Sorry, but no one is allowed to touch my stuff and I don't apologize for it. I don't even allow anyone to dust it off. Once the housekeeper dusted off my turntable and bent the stylus, ruined it....$500 bucks gone just like that. I never said a word to her about it, I just told her not to ever dust of my equipment again.

In another incident someone tried to play an LP while I was not watching. He got the turntable going but couldn't figure out how to get sound from the system. When I went over to see what was going on, he had the volume turned all the way up to maximum but still had no sound...of course he had no idea what a phono preamp was and of course it was not turned on. Had he turned the source knob one turn to my tuner which was switched on, he probably would have done serious damage to my speakers and scared the heck out of all of my guests with a loud blast. I politely told him not to ever touch my stuff again.

I've never had a guest over that was an audiophile.
128x128mitch4t

Showing 5 responses by kijanki

My whole system has one volume knob and one switch selecting either TV or DVD sound. Amplifier has max of 100W and speakers can take it. In addition amplifier has soft clipping. The worst thing that can happen is just loud sound that might scare somebody. Keep it simple people!
Rockaddany - Overheating the voice coil - not likely. Music carries only few watts of RMS power even at 100W peaks. Destroying equipment by fliping on and off power switch? - what about brown-outs?. TT is different story, I agree but with the rest of the stuff I just see people being very possessive, nothing else.
Cleaneduphippy - Owners of mentioned Harleys wouldn't allow another person, even very responsible and good biker, to ride/borrow their bike. It has nothing to do with the risk of damage - just being possessive.

Most of the people here wouldn't allow stranger/guest to touch their system even if there would be no risk of damage at all.
I'm not sure how fingerpints on CD can dirty lens, but it's easy to show your friend how to handle CD.

When I visit my friends I never touch their stereo or TV or VCR for the same reson that I don't open their drawers or refigirator but if my guest wants to set music himself I will show him how and politely instruct him not to turn volume knob beyond certain point (and explain why) if there is no sound. My 4 year old daughter was operating my TT doing better job than I did (being more carefull) - it's not rocket science folks.
Audphile - Oh my God! When you have such guests you should not only protect your stereo but also TV, microwave, kitchen mixer and perhaps even iron.