Audio equipment on Sixteen candles.

R

rca2000

Super Member
Anyone here ever watch Sixten candles, and happen to notice what kind of audio equipment is in the stereo cabinet, at the party where the house gets wrecked? I noticed this a while back, the movie was on a couple of days ago, and I REALLY tried to notice this time. Looked to me like:

A Nakamichi "Dragon" or similar tape deck; with tape spitting out of it.
A Denon turntable, I think,(the one with the funky lights on it.) It had a pizza on the platter.
another tape deck(i amnot sure of the brand. )

I didn't see the receiver or speakers.

ALL of this was being totally abused of course, by the partygoers. Anyone know of this kind of thing, happening for REAL?, and if so, what were the consequences, for the teen throwing the party?
 
Of all the soirees & bacchanals I attended back in my horribly misspent youth, I can honestly not remember a time we intentionally trashed the audio system. We kinda always took care of "the Stereo", just like we always treated "the Keg Tap" like it was gold. -Sandy G.
 
Blew a tweeter at a dorm floor party, back in my misspent youth. We all pitched in to pay for the replacement -- Foe
 
Not me- my stuff was always too revered, no matter how strong the party got. I got on a very angry face whenever any fractured moron got even remotely close.
 
"just like we always treated "the Keg Tap" like it was gold"

Exactly. The party goes down hill without tunes.


Mitch
 
Oh yea!!!!!!!!! ..I noticed the Denon DP-62L with the pizza on it ....i coulda killed sombody the first time i saw that!!!!!! :yikes: :uzi:
 
Many times....

I had the fortune to be present at many, many parties where some of the old gear I see revered around here simply trashed - usually by that one drunk guy who insisted he knew what he was doing.

Things like:

* Piling up all the LPs you've just played on top of the receiver's vent holes. Not only did it warp the LPs but it strangled the receiver which would ultimately shut down from heat buildup. BTW, those LP covers make a nice, slightly unstable spot to put your beer down while you swapped LPs....guess where the rest of the beer went - onto the TT.

* Turning up all the speakers: borrow your buddy's speakers since there's that other set of speaker terminals on the receiver, right? Wow, it'll get twice as loud, now. Of course, with the amp in 50% clipping all night/day, plenty of tweeters and amps went up in smoke.

* Give the bar-guy who's mixing drinks the responsibility of keeping the tunes going. Sure, let's keep all that great electronics as close as possible to all that alcohol and mixers. Smart move...ever wonder how many cases of beer will fit inside a Pioneer receiver? More than you think.

I had the fortunate experiences of being a bench tech in the 70s and made quite a bit of extra spending $$ on those guys who thought their stereo systems were immune to damage. I knew right off since they would bring them in on Monday mornings with the smell of smoke and alcohol still quite pungent.

Cheers,

David
 
Being a mobile DJ for over 15 years, you see more than your share of equipment assault, or attempted assault. Some of the trauma was self induced, sad to say. One example:

Back in our early days we thought it would be cool to build our own speakers. One of my partners had some talent with wood working and electronics, so we were in business. However, since we were young and dumb at the time, we built for our mobile DJ service the biggest speakers we possibility could, and had to rent a trailer every time we had a gig. These brutes had bass bins that were as big as a washing machine, and just as heavy, and giant EV Mid Horns on top.

One night we were playing in a particularly large hall, and we had the tunes cranked up rightously. One of our speakers, however, started to dance to the music as well. With each bass note, the speaker vibrated, and bounced just a little bit forward. We payed no notice, as we were having a blast spinning tunes. Sadly, however, the speaker danced a bit too close to the edge of the stage, and over she went: about a 4 foot drop. The mid horn survived, but the bass bin was damaged. We ended up taking a brief intermission, as my partner ran home, disconnected his brother's Bose 901's, and we finished the night with those.

Needless to say, we went back to the drawing board on the speakers, and built a pair that could be more easily moved, and stayed put when we played them!
 
I got a "good" one.... :cry:

My cousin asked for my help throwing a surprise party for her friend (borrow my house)...me, always looking for an excuse to have a drink said, "sure".

It was going great until at around 2 AM, with the festivities in full swing, some drunk decides to turn the big volume knob all the way to "11".

I'm in the backyard and I hear the music start to over-modulate...for about a second...then the whole party goes quiet.

My Definitive Technologies BP2002 towers had blown the voice-coils on the mids...these are bi-polar speakers...so that meant 4 mids for the mains, these are part of a matched set of HT speakers, so the center channel also exploded...two more mids...the rear channel bi-polar (model BPX) arrays had also blown....8! more mids torn to shreds.

DefTech, laughed at me when I called about warranty...hey, I had to try...but the idiot (who has yet to identify him or herself) ended up blowing over $1K worth of speaker components!

I guess I was lucky the amp didn't get damaged as well...it was a few years ago, so I don't remember if it was the Outlaw 750 I now have or the Pioneer VSX-D90 receiver...oh well...

From then on, I keep an inexpensive set of Radio Shack thrift store speakers, and my old Pioneer Pro-Logic receiver on hand for parties...go ahead blow those...they cost 10 bucks.

I have a feeling the 16 Candles pizza TT abuse was a statement by the producers/director that CD was "perfect sound forever".
 
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Hmm. Now I'll have to watch "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" again to see what else is in his system, apart from the AudioSource EQ.
 
"It was going great until at around 2 AM, with the festivities in full swing, some drunk decides to turn the big volume knob all the way to "11"."

Did you ever catch the culprit Manny? You sure have more patience than I would have.

Jim
 
Didn't they do some SERIOUS wastin' of things audio in "Weird Science" as well? I especially liked the nekkid chick shooting out of the chimney into the pool...Think I remember seeing a bigass TV floatin' in there.-Sandy G.
 
No, I didn't. But it taught me an expensive lesson about protecting my gear in a party situation. And these weren't college kids or anything...we're talking late 30's to 50's as the age ranges at this party. Something about vodka that makes everyone 16 again guess.

And it's not like it wasn't already loud...the volume put out by 5 DefTech speakers at a little more than halfway around the volume knob is literally earth-shaking. Each tower has a powered sub ...they rock. TO give you an idea of how loud it already was, think of a nightclub where you have to scream to hear yourself ...that's how loud it was.

Outside in the backyard, with the doors open you had to raise your voice, or walk about 15 feet away to speak in a normal tone. You can imagine that at or near the limits of the amp, when genius (whoever it was) cranked it the rest of the way it didn't take long to do major damage.
 
EchoWars said:
Man...I blew more speakers & crossovers than I care to recall. :guitar:
Click to expand...

Course I'm speaking of my own equipment EW. If others allowed their stuff to be thrown out onto the lawn, in the lake, or otherwise destroyed - well that was their business. :smoke:

-Dave
 
How about stereos in movies, in general....

Off the top of my head....

Risky Business.....Tom Cruise's dad had a Porsche 928; he also had one heck of a stereo system...I believe it was Phase Linear separates, including a now rare Phase Linear cassette deck, that huge gold one...

High Fidelity with John Cusack.....was it a Sansui integrated amp? Not sure but it was definitely a vintage piece...

And lately Catch Me If you Can, with Leonardo DiCaprio.....telling someone "hey, watch the hi-fi" (be careful with it) with a gorgeous pair of Bose 901 originals in clear view.....with the white grilles....

Anyone got others?
 
Back in the days (mid 80's) my old drummer became known for wrecking a few things at parties. One time we were at a party and he somehow ended up flying across the room and his head ended up going right into the 15" woofer of some speakers. Things were a bit hazzy in those days and I don't recall what they were, but they didn't have grills, looked expensive, and I don't think a drunk drummers head is any match for a woofer with foam surrounds.
I just remembered the face of the girl throwing the party and telling us her boyfriend was going to kill her when he finds out.
The same head went through the drywall one time at his own house during a party while his parents were away on vacation. We did a repair the next morning and as far as I know, his parents still never found out about it.
His idol was Keith Moon and he used to be just as crazy on stage. One Halloween we played a back yard party and this maniac jumped up on his set, knocking it over, and sent him flying right onto my 2 x 15" bass cabinet, sending my $2,500 rig crashing to the ground.

We are no longer in a band together, but when he comes over, I put the grills back on my speakers and move them out of his way. :thmbsp:
 
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