A sad but educational story....

Back in the late '80's a friend borrowed my Wharfdale cabinets for a party... He also borrowed my NAD 100W RMS stereo power amp....all in exchange for an open bar tab and a place to crash.... Anyway, it was a great party, lots of girls, I got rotten drunk, and soon as the very loud music stopped I closed my eyes and suddenly it was morning...or afternoon... or whatever...

I thought "I'll put some music on".. and only farty-fart-fart noises came out of my beautiful seriously expensive for the time Wharfdales... I was not impressed and after getting them home I sought out replacement 12" drivers. I had bought these speakers when I had a good job that paid lots of money, but at the time of failure I was essentially jobless thus couldn't afford to buy recones or replacement drivers yet I did find where I could get them...

Months latter I bought the two replacement 12" drivers.... To my surprise the packaging said they were rated at 25W each.... but the originals had lasted over 8 hours connected to a 100W RMS per channel amp at 'party volume' for over 150 people. So I investigated further and found the old drivers hadn't actually blown but the voice coils were overheated and had melted enough to cause binding to the magnet housing. There was a lot of other damage so I felt justified in getting full replacement speakers...

With the knowledge gained from my experience above I had little fear a year or two later in hooking up a newly acquired amp to my Wharfdales... Through a lucky stroke I scored a Jands 920 power amp for a very reasonable price... 450W RMS per channel... I knew what I was doing. I knew what I was risking if I turned it up, and I was in a small flat with a lounge room barely 25sq m in size..... My mistake was not to pull the fuse when I left my flatmate alone with my enhanced "home stereo"... It took her about a month to find the master volume control, and I found out the same evening that she had found it with the comment "There's something wrong with your stereo... I turned it up and it was all right for a while, then it started making weird sounds, so I turned it off".... And sure as hell I remember I found the Master volume set at 8.

So the Wharfdales got packed away, as did the NAD amp. The 920 got sold to a PA hire company.... And about 5 years ago I bought yet another set of replacement drivers, both the LF 12" and this time also the HF horns. Watching movies and the occasional DVD or blueray for an older couple like us is a walk in the park when compared to a party for 150 twenty-somethings...