Mods and Tweaks that are outright dangerous

Discussion in 'Tales from the Bully Pulpit' started by Madaboutaudio, Oct 1, 2016.

  1. Madaboutaudio

    Madaboutaudio Friend

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    Just want to highlight that there some things in audio that you should never do. (please feel free to add any other dangerous stuff)

    Some smart ass decided that exposed cotton wiring improves sound quality. Untreated Cotton is one of the most easy to ignite materials you can find. Please for the sake of your family safety, don't ever do this kind of mods.
    [​IMG]
    http://tweakaudio.com/EVS-2/Gustard_X20_Mods.html

    Yes, there are cables that have cotton in them like this canare l-4e6s, but they are not exposed:
    [​IMG]
     
  2. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Oh yeah... moving on from the jumping-the-fuse-with-foil stuff that is just plain dangerous too. It doesn't draw much current? It will when someone spills a cup of tea into it!

    Common misconception is that fuses are there to protect the appliance. Actually, they are there to protect upstream components, starting with the wire in our walls. A world without fuses and breakers is a world full of melting, burning cables and, ultimately, exploding power stations!

    There are some amazing, skilled, knowledgeable people in audio. People who can build amplifiers out of their heads! (Oh wait, not when out of their heads. Or ok, maybe that too,) Others need to learn some of the basics of electrics, let alone electronics, before they start messing with stuff.

    And a BTW: Canare's "exotic polyester fibres..." well, I suppose that is an excuse for some of the world's worst shirts!
     
  3. frenchbat

    frenchbat Almost "Made"

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    I suppose you need to experience a cable burning to understand what it means. Almost lost my car with one.
     
  4. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    It certainly makes electricity more, err, tangible!

    1. A bang made me run to the distribution panel. smoke was coming from behind it. I hit the isolator. Then I thought better of taking it out on the isolator, and turned it off. Pulling cables from where the bad workmen had stuffed them revealed twisted ends and tape. On fire.

    2. The lower the voltage the higher the current. The lights went dim, the AC mad very funny noises, and then everything went dark. No actual danger, this time, but replacing the main three-phase supply cable was expensive.

    3. A lot of Indian-city mains cabling and power-supply equipment has had to be replaced over the the last decade due to one thing: Air-conditioning machines becoming popular. Houses that drew watts suddenly drew power in Kw, and the inevitable happened out there in the street. There was some very ropey cabling in the road outside our house a few years back. one day, I found my wife looking at the smoke coming out of the ground and wondering if she should should pour water on it! eek, eek and double eek. I told her to stick to modding tube amps with wet mud.



    (the last sentence is a joke. The ones before it are all too deadly-real)
     
  5. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    My old physics teacher at school liked to tell a tale of his halls of residence as a student- the electrics were a bit overworked, so fuses would blow fairly regularly in the consumer units. One day, some bright soul decided to fix the problem by replacing some of the fuses with six inch nails. Apparently, this did solve the problem fairly well, until fires started inside the the walls..
     
  6. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Yep. That's was fuses are for. GUTB, are you reading this?
     
  7. landroni

    landroni Friend

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    @GUTB Did you check your fire insurance lately? Please make sure it covers Ric-modded Gustards... Won't do much good for your life, though. Although then maybe life insurance may come in handy, depending on your philosophical bent on these things.
     
  8. TwoEars

    TwoEars Friend

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    Introduction to electrical safety:

     
  9. Divad al-Rahsir

    Divad al-Rahsir Facebook Friend

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    That site is a trip. Bare cotton on wires? Bypassed fuses? No power switch? ("This mod has no power switch.....you plug it in...it is on. No need to turn it off...uses little electricity.") What could possibly go wrong with unattended electronics that are always on and have the safety features disabled? This man is shooting for the moon, and if our space program has taught me anything, it's that the occasional explosion on the launchpad is merely the cost of doing business. Think BIG, man! This is HIFI that we're talking about here!

    You guys are laughing now, but you won't be laughing after I plaster quantum stickers all over my Gungnir Multibit and stuff some cardboard in my E90. It's going to sound so sick.
     
  10. johnjen

    johnjen Doesn’t want to be here but keeps posting anyways

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    I can just tell that most of you have never played with REAL electricity before…

    I made jacobs ladders and did other 'experiments' using a 17Kv transformer when I was much younger.
    You learn to have a healthy respect for electricity, one way or another.

    And if you REALLY want to know what REAL electricity can do, look into the substation explosions back at the turn of the last century.
    They blew up AFTER the main switches were thrown to disconnect the substation from the mains. :eek:

    At the time it was considered a serious problem, as you might imagine. o_O

    JJ
     
  11. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    And the really stupid thing is it is all complete audiophoolery. Utter nonsense. People should stick to crystals, wire loops, esoteric symbols and other harmless pieces of insanity.
     
  12. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    I can tell that you've never trodden on a pointy bit of rose quartz in bare feet- even Lego doesn't come close!
     
  13. ButtUglyJeff

    ButtUglyJeff Stunningly beautiful IRL

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    Just hook that DAC to a Elise "Christmas Tree" amp, and you're all set for quite a show...
     
  14. Divad al-Rahsir

    Divad al-Rahsir Facebook Friend

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    I hope that you're not saying that flammable coverings on wires in a circuit with a bypassed protection against shorts won't make my gear sound better, and that the potential risk of losing everything that I own (possibly including loved ones isn't worth an audiophoolical (my made up term) increase in sound quality. Them's fightin' words, son. This is HIFI that we're talking about! HIFI!

    Besides, the quantum stickers don't work properly if there's a power switch in the circuit. Fact.
     
  15. Torq

    Torq MOT: Headphone.com

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    Whomever did the soldering on the monstrosity in the first post has no business modifying anyone else's hardware. I'm surprised they didn't set fire to the cotton as they were doing that one, never mind letting it run like that. It looks like it has the same attention to aesthetic detail as the website from whence it spawned.

    I mention aesthetics only because it is blatantly obvious that there's no engineering going on there. Well, you know, excepting the clearly state-of-the-art transformer isolation mentioned elsewhere on that site. I've lost count of the number of intense debates I've gotten into, over many years now, with various well-respected engineers, as to exactly who's produce boxes we should use to cut our cardboard transformer mounts from.

    But back to that staggering soldering job ...

    It looks like a deranged, concussed and possibly inebriated, monkey, with severe motor control issues was given some random wire, odds of perf-board and a soldering gun* and then let loose with the promise that it could have all the bananas it could imagine if it could use up all the parts it was given and not actually break the X20 in the process.

    In a bizarre twist of fate, it managed to improve the sound of the thing ... of course that was by rendering it to a state in which it spontaneously combusted when it was first plugged in.

    (*If it had been a soldering iron the joints might have faired better ... as those must have been made with a 1/4" tip!)
     
  16. Madaboutaudio

    Madaboutaudio Friend

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  17. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Adds tubes. Must improve quality.

    Actually, sad: would not be one of their buyers, but I thought that Lampizator, if one swallowed their line, at least made stuff decently.
     
  18. Madaboutaudio

    Madaboutaudio Friend

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    After adding tubes, add additional zero to the sale price of the equipment.
     
  19. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    More tubes! Merry Christmas one and all!

    Also, holy crap, that frankensqueeze.. it's terrifying.
     
  20. Torq

    Torq MOT: Headphone.com

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    Bloody hell ...

    They must have employed the same monkey, on the same kind of contract, topped up its hip-flask and tossed in a caulking gun with a nozzle sized for refinery plumbing.
     

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