Your Worst Audio Breakdown

I had a pair of VTL MB250 monoblock amps. I was listening late one night and dozed off after the music had stopped. When I awoke, I saw a shower of sparks coming from the back of one of the amps like a rooster tail, straight up in the air. It looked as if someone had lit a 4th of July fireworks display cone. Bewilderment quickly became sensibility and I plucked the cord from the wall. All that was left of the B+ fuse holder was a charred cinder. A friend said the breakover voltage of the fuse holder had been exceeded.

VTL was absolutely great in handling this-no charge. When the amps came back they had the new-style, large fuse holders that you now see used on the VTL amps.

There was another episode, not a failure, but idiots at SOTA. I bought their Time Domain speakers from a local dealer and had problems getting them in the right spot, then problems finding the right seat height. I ended up having to sit on a bar stool to get the sound to where it gelled. When I made comparisons with the ones in the store, I gave it up to the problem being my room.

The sales rep at the store was a woodworker and proposed making some new enclosures for the speakers with exotic woods. When I removed the old drivers and crossovers from the old enclosures, I was shocked to find some crossover componenets missing from the board on one of the speakers. I called SOTA and they said it was no big deal and shouldn't make any difference!

In the end my insistence showed this was the root of the problem I was dealing with for a year and a half.