[The Quality Guru]

Have friends ever done careless and potentially destructive things to your audio equipment? My headphones have now experienced the equivalent of rape. Let me explain/vent/rant:

Just today, someone who was at my house to work with me on a group project decided to fool around with my audio equipment. He, without permission, casually picks up my HP-2's by one earcup and looks back at me. "I wonder how loud they go?" he says excitedly as he turns the volume knob on the Melos clockwise to near-maximum vollume - but luckily he instantly turns it right back into the opposite direction. So the HP-2's experienced maximum volume for a tad less then one second, but I was nevertheless quite pissed.

And then, as if one thing was not enough, he does something else rather careless. He goes to my laptop and removes a DVD from the drive and replaces it with another. However, he does not push the DVD down enough so that it is secure in the tray- so when he pushes the drive back into the PC the spinning DVD makes a nasty scraping noise. Good-bye Monty Python Flying Circus DVD.

The good news: The HP-2's evidently still produce sound. Whether it's of the same quality as it once was I have no idea as I haven't taken the time give them a good listen.

But my question is: Are my headphones damaged as a result of this incident? Does volume of this magnitude have very negative impact on the transducers to the point that sound will not be of the same grade as it once was?

Thanks.

 

[LobsterSan]

Hm... I don't know the answer to your question, as I am too afraid to try with any of my headphones. I imagine if it went loud enough, you could blow a driver (but you'd probably hear that immediately).

If someone in my group had done that to my non-existent HP-2's... I'm sorry, that boy would be strung up and beaten with a muddy shoe. I would have just been like... "thanks for ruining my $1000 pair of headphones. I'll be expecting a settlement for $25,000, which includes payment for the emotional torture that I have just experienced, you ignorant person." What causes someone to be that stupid?

I hate group projects.

 

[andrzejpw]

Ugh, sorry friend.

Personally, I'm VERY anal about anyone coming near my electronics. . .

I take it he's paying for you DVD, right? And, if anything's wrong with the grados, for their repair?

 

[sacd lover]

The abuse your phones encurred could certainly damage them. If they still make sound thats good, but you may later encounter humming/buzzing if they are damaged, even though they play. Once a driver is damaged they must be repaired. However, if the drivers werent damaged, they will sound just as good as before. I hope your phones are OK!

 

[KR...]

FORCE him to pay for that DVD! Do not let people get away with that type of thing.

 

[Calanctus]

QG, I hope you weren't just sitting there watching when he did that stuff--did you yell at him to stop, or tell him not to touch ANYTHING after he did the first misdeed?

I'd not waste any time--if he has not offered to pay for damages, I'd buttonhole him, preferably with a few witnesses around, tell him what he did (as if he didn't know) in a short sentence or two along with the amount of damages, and ask him politely to pay up.

 

[RVD]

Sorry about the trauma to your headphones QG. I would definitely make him pay for the DVD and for emotional distress of seeing your HP-2's go through that.

I have been lucky enough to have only one friend pick up my headphones. I told him you break it you buy it and when he asked the cost and I told him he quickly put them down.

 

[wallijonn]

put a BIG, BIG, BIG sign that says: "Please do not EVER touch my equipment or any of my possessions" over your desk.

 

[grinch]

kill him and feed the.. err, nevermind.

i'm pretty nasty when it comes to people touching my stuff as well. i never let anybody borrow a cd, i'd rather just burn them a copy and not worry about it. i never really lend anybody dvds either and i found out i couldn't even leave them in my own house. i left the bulk of them in my room while i was at school, and i'd come back to them being all over the place in my shelf and half of the dvds falling out of the cases, fingerprints everywhere.. i can't take it.

nobody touches my headphones unless i expressly hand a pair to them while saying "be careful." at least the hp-1000's are built really hardcore and should be able to take the normal all-thumbed person's beating. sorry to hear about them.. send them to me and i'll tell you if they're still good or not.

[size=xx-small]p.s. post one thousand for me.

[/size]

 

[kin3tix]

good idea wallijohn, but it needs to be more threatening

.

btw, congrats on the 1000th post grinch

.

 

[dngl]

That would piss me off to no end. I have a spare pair of headphones for my guests. Fortunately they are adequately impressed with the outer appearance of my stereo to refrain from touching it without permission.

FWIW, I don't think you could do much damage with such a quick spurt of power. Just don't worry about it and don't let there be a psychological effect.

PS- welcome to team Melos!

 

[carlo]

Violence and drinking helps numb the pain.

 

[penvzila]

My stupid friends wouldn't even notice the difference between an expensive pair of headphones and my Aiwas. The friends i trust wouldn't touch my stuff without asking. I can't even imagine something like that happening.

 

[The Quality Guru]

Thanks for the thoughts/condolences, guys.

Now that I think about it, since many of you mentioned some crazy punishments I ought to have implemented, I could have been a lot more severe when yelling at the headphone assailant for his dirty deed, but I wasn't. Maybe I should have fed him to my dog or made him get on his knees or something . . .

After listening to the headphones for a while, it appears they managed to escape the rape unscathed (*fingers crossed*). But it will likely take a while for me to recover psychologically; something about your rare, not easily replaceable HP-2's almost die in front of you that doesn't settle well mentally. Post-dramatic stress!

And yes, that mofo will pay for that DVD.

Quote:

If they still make sound thats good, but you may later encounter humming/buzzing if they are damaged, even though they play.

Sacd lover,
When you say I may experience problems 'later' do you mean that these headphones may show signs of damage from this incident, say, a few weeks/months/years from now? Ahh!

 

[dokebi]

Get revenge. Go to his house and take his mom or sister for a spin. Throw a box of ants into his house, anything. My friend dropped a $200 import cd player the day I got it and it broke.(I think the prick did it on purpose out of jealousy) I was quite pissed but didn't do anything. I still think about it to this day.