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The Scariest Story Ever Told?

What is the scariest thing that has ever happened to you while listening to your high end audio system? Your story can involve anything, from buying an outrageously expensive component that sounded terrible when you turned on your system or a mishap that cost you lots of money to repair or buying tubes only to discover that the boxes were empty.

Last night, while I was talking to a good friend of mine over the telephone, I heard a loud "pop" through my left speaker and soon thereafter, some static. I immediately inspected my amplifier only to discover that one of my left channel output "vacuum tubes" was on fire (internal flame within the tube, believe it or not!) Now, that blew my mind! Fortunately, it only turned out to be a tube going bad and my amplifier did not short-out. Thank God!

I must admit that I nearly had a heart attack and felt lost without my trustworthy and extremely loved Berning amplifier.

hawaiikid
gunbei
2,327 posts
 
Sometimes late on sunday nights I like to listen to the Hearts of Space and Pipe Dreams broadcasts over the radio. I turn off all the lights, crank up the music and lay on top of my bed like a Haitian zombie waiting to be resurrected.

Sometimes that freakin' pipe organ music is down right scary, especially late at night in total darkness. It feels like Dracula or some demented Catholic ritual is occuring.

Space music in those conditions can be eerie as well. A couple times I felt like I was being levitated off the bed while entranced in some other-worldly synth nebulae sounds.

Spoooky!!!!
dweller's avatar
dweller
3,735 posts
 
I'd just moved into a new apartment and installed a ceiling fan in my listening room. This was in an ancient Chicago brown-stone building and the overhead wiring was very complex. Apparently, I'd combined two 115 volt lines into one. I reactivated the power and turned on my tape player for some casual music -wrong! Poor little thing; All of it's bells and whistles going off at once. It's dials and guages whipping and flickering and "poof" that infamous puff of blue smoke... Took three months to fix the little fella.
unclejeff
1,313 posts
 
I can speak to what i once witnessed. When I was a kid, we were visiting some fellow's house and he let me see his room, which would have competede with the most outrageous of virtual systems I have seen posted here.

Anyway, he put his wine on the shelf and told me to touch nothing. As he reached over to flip a switch he bumped the wine which poured into the biggest tube amp I had ever seen.

The kitchen fire extinguisher averted an even bigger catastrophy.
kurt_tank
1,189 posts
 
About 15 years ago, I was looking to purchase a new amp to replace my trusty old Conrad Johnson MV 50. I had a contact at a stereo shop in San Francisco who would lend you an amp, as long as you gave him a credit card payment (just in case of course). I borrowed a Counterpoint hybrid amp to try out with my Counterpoint preamp. I then fired up the amp to do do some testing with a friend. The term "fired" up quickly became the operative word when the amp made a large pop and flames shot out of the amp toward the ceiling!! I quickly turned it off and did my best big, bad wolf impression and blew the flames out!
I then had the unfortunate task of bringing it back to the store and informing him of the problem. Like the true gentleman that he was, he did not bat an eye, took it back and gave me back my credit card slip. (I wish he was still in business, as he was a credit to his profession!)
kinsekd
252 posts
 
I had just installed a black diamond racing shelf underneath my turntable. Turned on my tubed preamp, and power amp to settle in for a long night of spinning vinyl. All of a sudden, I heard what sounded like a shotgun blast coming from the vicinity of my fairly expensive Audio Research amplifier. Then I smelled sickly sweet smell of burning electronics. Along with a tell tale column of gray smoke. I immediately developed a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and a dull ache in the vicinity of my wallet. My Christmas vacation was just starting and here I was with no way to play my tunes.

Fortunately, it didn't turn out to be too expensive. And they had my amp back to me within a week. Thank you Nicholson's.
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