Kansas city fall fest. official sign up thread & INFO

If I seem pissed of try and understand how can a room full of audiophiles blow 2 possibly 3 drivers and not tell the owner. I understand accidents happen but this is ridiculous. Someone could have told me I am not a ****ing monster.
 
This is awful and I can assure you of one thing right off as we sort this out, NO ONE in the room even suspected any damage was done. If we did damage we'll make it right, I promise you that. I will personally if need be.

Here's what I recall. We rapidly switched to the Kg's because the sound was not right and we weren't sure what was causing it. If drivers were blown that would explain the bad sound, but how that could have happened I am not sure.

We had two different CD players, the Marantz 7 pre, then the other pre for awhile, the SAE amp, and finally Kurtgo's amps. We had trouble from the outset with a dropped channel so we went through from front to back to diagnose. I can't tell you every step and I was never sure exactly what made everything come to life properly.

There was a moment when you came thru and warned us about those mids, and it was pretty soon after that that your speakers were offline and we were using mine in case there was a speaker problem. [Edit - by problem I mean already existing in the speakers] In between there - maybe it was what made you say that, you might have heard it - someone did disconnect either the source to pre or pre to power amp while it was turned on and there was a thump. I was in front and quickly turned off the power amp at that point because that's bad practice. After that the amp was always off when switching things and no more thumps.

I don't know for sure which amp but it was probably the SAE at that point, it was early in the day and Kurt hadn't brought his 300 wpc amps up yet. But we were swapping out pre's and sources and eventually amps trying to find the problem so they may have been there.

If you think that one live disconnect could have done it, that's the only thing I can possibly imagine. As far as any of us knew, all the eqpt was working fine when it got there, so we weren't testing unknown gear. [Edit: None of it was my gear but the pre and power amp owners were there and said all their stuff was fine.]

I would never, never have sat there till 9 pm and listened to music with you guys without saying anything if I had known.

Edit: If anyone else has additional info to add, please do.
 
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I'll donate to the repair cause. I was not aware that anything broke, but what the heck. I hope there's a next time.

Thanks for the offer my friend. We are not accusing anyone of anything but simply trying to find out what happened
. I hauled the speakers down today to do an audition for a buyer and found this. I really wish I had known about it. Sadly these will now go to the burn pile as the drivers are unobtainmun & even sub equal replacements are not worth the expense. We shall miss them.
 
Darn - sorry to hear about that. It is a shame that everyone does not practice the methodology of turning eqpt off before disconnecting and reconnecting, especially with anything to do with the preamp and amp.

I'd contribute to help as well if that helps. And I think we all understand the worst part is not being told about it.
 
Darn - sorry to hear about that. It is a shame that everyone does not practice the methodology of turning eqpt off before disconnecting and reconnecting, especially with anything to do with the preamp and amp.

I'd contribute to help as well if that helps. And I think we all understand the worst part is not being told about it.


You are a good man Thanks for understanding our frustration. If anything we owe you my friend.
 
This is awful and I can assure you of one thing right off as we sort this out, NO ONE in the room even suspected any damage was done. If we did damage we'll make it right, I promise you that. I will personally if need be.

Here's what I recall. We rapidly switched to the Kg's because the sound was not right and we weren't sure what was causing it. If drivers were blown that would explain the bad sound, but how that could have happened I am not sure.

We had two different CD players, the Marantz 7 pre, then the other pre for awhile, the SAE amp, and finally Kurtgo's amps. We had trouble from the outset with a dropped channel so we went through from front to back to diagnose. I can't tell you every step and I was never sure exactly what made everything come to life properly.

There was a moment when you came thru and warned us about those mids, and it was pretty soon after that that your speakers were offline and we were using mine in case there was a speaker problem. [Edit - by problem I mean already existing in the speakers] In between there - maybe it was what made you say that, you might have heard it - someone did disconnect either the source to pre or pre to power amp while it was turned on and there was a thump. I was in front and quickly turned off the power amp at that point because that's bad practice. After that the amp was always off when switching things and no more thumps.

I don't know for sure which amp but it was probably the SAE at that point, it was early in the day and Kurt hadn't brought his 300 wpc amps up yet. But we were swapping out pre's and sources and eventually amps trying to find the problem so they may have been there.

If you think that one live disconnect could have done it, that's the only thing I can possibly imagine. As far as any of us knew, all the eqpt was working fine when it got there, so we weren't testing unknown gear. [Edit: None of it was my gear but the pre and power amp owners were there and said all their stuff was fine.]

I would never, never have sat there till 9 pm and listened to music with you guys without saying anything if I had known.

Edit: If anyone else has additional info to add, please do.

Brother again we are not blaming anyone. Whatever happened happened. The summits were working properly as we had just played them the day before to be sure for the fest. A powered disconnect is more than enough to severely damage any component in the chain at any time. Power on & off are the most failure prone moments in audio. All it takes is a square wave & some current to do real damage.

As I said we are saddened because the Ameritas were somewhat of a collectors acquisition. The Vifa D 75 mx drivers are more to replace that the speakers will ever be worth. Let alone a Peerless woof and possible Vifa tweet. I would expect some Xover components are also in failure.

As it is they are probably gone for good. :(
 
the Peerless 10' is almost frozen. Voice coil is rubbing so bad it sounds like a washboard. Massive square wave is the only culprit i can think of. would have taken only a millisecond with high current. the mid plays as well but is distorted and for all intents and purposes a goner. I am going to get my meter out and check the tweets but likely all the drivers in the right tower are beyond help. This is my fault. If they were that important i should have put another set in that room. Just very sad to see such a great pair of rare speakers die.

This is my last post on this matter and we don't have any ill feeling toward anyone. I just have to move on . :(
 
Chris i realize this and once again i am not blaming anyone but myself.

"I would never, never have sat there till 9 pm and listened to music with you guys without saying anything if I had known."
 
Chris i realize this and once again i am not blaming anyone but myself.

"I would never, never have sat there till 9 pm and listened to music with you guys without saying anything if I had known."
Kurt, Chris, and I will go three ways to at least cover the money you had invested in them.

I see your point that it's not cost effective to source the actual drivers or even close replacements.

Let us get you some cash to take the sting out of the situation. The whole situation is a buzz kill for sure.
 
On a lighter note someone left 2 brand new Ozark trail camping chairs last sat. claim them if they are yours.
 
Kurt, Chris, and I will go three ways to at least cover the money you had invested in them.

I see your point that it's not cost effective to source the actual drivers or even close replacements.

Let us get you some cash to take the sting out of the situation. The whole situation is a buzz kill for sure.

I really do appreciate this offer. Since we don't really know what happened I am hesitant to have anyone cover this. I am going with the assumption that a square wave got them during a preamp switch. I am going to swap the drivers from the left tower whis is fully working to the right today. I am praying the xovers are good & only the 10' peerless is toast.

Once i know the condition i will let everyone know. Maybe Slice speaker can recone the woofer well enough to match. Hell i have never had the woofs out to determine if they are indeed Peerless as was used by the mfg. originally.

I have come to grips with this and decided that barring a total disaster with the electronics we are going to bite the bullet and repair them.

Thanks to all who are offering to help with this.

Eric & Erin
 
The results are in. The woofers are GEFCO SP101 10" and although only one is toast it seem like i will need to replace both or recone both to get a match.

The mids are apparently working. With all the scraping from the blown 10 i could not hear it correctly. The xovers are intact as of a quick listening with only one woofer playing the image seems to be correct. Must have been a big jolt of DC to knock out the woof but at least they can be repaired without too much expense.

Time to call slice

Eric & Erin
 
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I've been travelling today so just catching up. Thanks for the comments Eric and I'm so sorry this happened. We should have taken them out of the loop as soon as you said something. Doing further post-mortem it was not just a question of whether the gear was OK but that we also paid attention to connections and power. I am not going to beat myself up over it as you very kindly suggest not to, but this will be a good lesson for all. It is a very easy situation to make mistakes: unfamiliar gear, multiple hands working at once, festive atmosphere, etc. It reminds me of the time at Jay's when someone was looking at a very expensive tube in the box, turned it over to read the bottom, and the tube came out of the open box onto the concrete. You just don't think someone is going to do that but in hindsight...

I too thought of at least making you whole for what you have in them. Please do continue to keep us posted.

I am more of a speaker geek than anything else and it saddens me to have such a pair of speakers damaged like that.

If there is any chance of finding the less rare drivers here at AK, ebay etc. let us know what to look for and the search will commence. Lord knows I have helped scores of people find drivers for their speakers, it is the least we can do.
 
I've been travelling today so just catching up. Thanks for the comments Eric and I'm so sorry this happened. We should have taken them out of the loop as soon as you said something. Doing further post-mortem it was not just a question of whether the gear was OK but that we also paid attention to connections and power. I am not going to beat myself up over it as you very kindly suggest not to, but this will be a good lesson for all. It is a very easy situation to make mistakes: unfamiliar gear, multiple hands working at once, festive atmosphere, etc. It reminds me of the time at Jay's when someone was looking at a very expensive tube in the box, turned it over to read the bottom, and the tube came out of the open box onto the concrete. You just don't think someone is going to do that but in hindsight...

I too thought of at least making you whole for what you have in them. Please do continue to keep us posted.

I am more of a speaker geek than anything else and it saddens me to have such a pair of speakers damaged like that.

If there is any chance of finding the less rare drivers here at AK, ebay etc. let us know what to look for and the search will commence. Lord knows I have helped scores of people find drivers for their speakers, it is the least we can do.

Thank you my friend

We are not now nor ever have been looking for money. We really just wanted to know what happened so we could proceed with repair or not. I talked to Slice today and he will recone the woofs for a very fair price. Lesson learned all around ( I know the tube story well) once againg I am already whole because of all of you who are our friends at AK.

Chris Both Erin & I understand accidents happen and this is one of those times. Please think nothing further of it.

Eric & Erin
 
I can promise everyone up front; I won't be cueing any vinyl, or even touching anyone's tone arm, ever.

I've popped at least one woofer via a sloppy needle drop (fortunately it was my own rig).

I'm all digital now days.
 
To all who attended the fest.

I am sorry if it seemed that we wanted money or some compensation. We just wanted to find a starting point to determine the problem.

I have diagnosed the speakers and have a repair in progress as i type.

Of course there will be another fest at our home. Way better than family holidays to do these events because we are all friends in this hobby.

Thanks for the kind and honorable offers to help with the repairs. With the greatest respect and gratitude Erin & I would like to decline.

If everyone was comfortable here we would love to host a spring fest. Also any of you are welcome with a phone call anytime to visit & listen.

Thanks again to all of you for you kindness and understanding in this time of loss. :)

Eric & Erin
 
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