Some customers...

[Mark Zacharias]

How is it a grown man cannot understand the concept of keeping two wires
separate?

Fixed a Yamaha RX-A2010 with a blown channel back in December.

Under warranty.

Big job.

Cautioned him on speaker hook-ups, gave him our hand-out sheet explaining
speaker connections,
which also contains explicit warnings about shorting wires etc.

Nevertheless he brought it back this week with the same channel blown again.

It was all I could do not to just go off on the guy. He admitted fooling
around with the wires while the unit was powered up, and that the wires had
crossed. Exactly the sort of thing I had "educated" him about.

Fucking idiot. Lucky for him Yamaha is covering it again, and we needed the
work anyway.

Shit for brains god damn idiot. I knew better that this when I was sixteen
fucking years old!

I'm reminded of Chevy Chase's rant in Christmas Vacation...


Mark Z.

 

i'm surprised that Yamaha is covering this. Usually, customer caused failures are not covered. I recall having discussions with customers about similar types of repair requests. It seems that they think that anything that failes regardless of the cause is covered. Not the case. Physically broken parts are not usually covered. In one case, a Sony diskman (portable CD player) had the cover broken off. The owner actually thought that this would be covered under warranty. I questioned what manufaturing defect "caused" this problem and did not get an answer...

Dan

 

[Cursitor Doom]

On Fri, 25 Mar 2016 05:48:15 -0500, Mark Zacharias wrote:

Cautioned him on speaker hook-ups, gave him our hand-out sheet
explaining speaker connections,
which also contains explicit warnings about shorting wires etc.

Hey, come on. 16 ohms, 8 ohms, zero ohms; it's all the same. ;->

 

[pfjw@aol.com]

On Friday, March 25, 2016 at 7:49:13 AM UTC-4, N_Cook wrote:

On 25/03/2016 10:48, Mark Zacharias wrote:
How is it a grown man cannot understand the concept of keeping two wires
separate?

Fixed a Yamaha RX-A2010 with a blown channel back in December.

Under warranty.

Big job.

Cautioned him on speaker hook-ups, gave him our hand-out sheet
explaining speaker connections,
which also contains explicit warnings about shorting wires etc.

Nevertheless he brought it back this week with the same channel blown
again.

It was all I could do not to just go off on the guy. He admitted fooling
around with the wires while the unit was powered up, and that the wires
had crossed. Exactly the sort of thing I had "educated" him about.

Fucking idiot. Lucky for him Yamaha is covering it again, and we needed
the work anyway.

Shit for brains god damn idiot. I knew better that this when I was
sixteen fucking years old!

I'm reminded of Chevy Chase's rant in Christmas Vacation...


Mark Z.



I have a customer who keeps breaking things, often fatally, because he
picks up the nearest wallwart, having mislaid the original one, because
it looks the same size black lump and the connector pushes in, so it
must be ok .

Once upon a time, there was movement to color-code and size-code these things... It never quite took.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

 

[N_Cook]

On 25/03/2016 10:48, Mark Zacharias wrote:

How is it a grown man cannot understand the concept of keeping two wires
separate?

Fixed a Yamaha RX-A2010 with a blown channel back in December.

Under warranty.

Big job.

Cautioned him on speaker hook-ups, gave him our hand-out sheet
explaining speaker connections,
which also contains explicit warnings about shorting wires etc.

Nevertheless he brought it back this week with the same channel blown
again.

It was all I could do not to just go off on the guy. He admitted fooling
around with the wires while the unit was powered up, and that the wires
had crossed. Exactly the sort of thing I had "educated" him about.

Fucking idiot. Lucky for him Yamaha is covering it again, and we needed
the work anyway.

Shit for brains god damn idiot. I knew better that this when I was
sixteen fucking years old!

I'm reminded of Chevy Chase's rant in Christmas Vacation...


Mark Z.

I have a customer who keeps breaking things, often fatally, because he
picks up the nearest wallwart, having mislaid the original one, because
it looks the same size black lump and the connector pushes in, so it
must be ok .

 

[Chuck]

On Fri, 25 Mar 2016 05:48:15 -0500, "Mark Zacharias"
<mark_zacharias@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

How is it a grown man cannot understand the concept of keeping two wires
separate?

Fixed a Yamaha RX-A2010 with a blown channel back in December.

Under warranty.

Big job.

Cautioned him on speaker hook-ups, gave him our hand-out sheet explaining
speaker connections,
which also contains explicit warnings about shorting wires etc.

Nevertheless he brought it back this week with the same channel blown again.

It was all I could do not to just go off on the guy. He admitted fooling
around with the wires while the unit was powered up, and that the wires had
crossed. Exactly the sort of thing I had "educated" him about.

Fucking idiot. Lucky for him Yamaha is covering it again, and we needed the
work anyway.

Shit for brains god damn idiot. I knew better that this when I was sixteen
fucking years old!

I'm reminded of Chevy Chase's rant in Christmas Vacation...


Mark Z.

Back in the late 70s we repaired a compact stereo that used RCA jacks
for speaker outputs. The customer came back with the stereo claiming
there was no output. We hooked it up and it worked fine. I had him
bring in his speakers. He had wired both the plus and minus leads to
the center connector on both speaker plugs. I kept a straight face
but unfortunately one of my techs went off on him.

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

 

[amdx]

On 3/25/2016 6:32 AM, dansabrservices@yahoo.com wrote:

i'm surprised that Yamaha is covering this. Usually, customer caused failures are not covered. I recall having discussions with customers about similar types of repair requests. It seems that they think that anything that failes regardless of the cause is covered. Not the case. Physically broken parts are not usually covered. In one case, a Sony diskman (portable CD player) had the cover broken off. The owner actually thought that this would be covered under warranty. I questioned what manufaturing defect "caused" this problem and did not get an answer...

Dan

Back in the 70's my Pioneer SX-828's protection circuit did it's job
and saved my several repairs.
Mikek

 

[Cydrome Leader]

Chuck <chuck@mydeja.net> wrote:

On Fri, 25 Mar 2016 05:48:15 -0500, "Mark Zacharias"
mark_zacharias@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

How is it a grown man cannot understand the concept of keeping two wires
separate?

Fixed a Yamaha RX-A2010 with a blown channel back in December.

Under warranty.

Big job.

Cautioned him on speaker hook-ups, gave him our hand-out sheet explaining
speaker connections,
which also contains explicit warnings about shorting wires etc.

Nevertheless he brought it back this week with the same channel blown again.

It was all I could do not to just go off on the guy. He admitted fooling
around with the wires while the unit was powered up, and that the wires had
crossed. Exactly the sort of thing I had "educated" him about.

Fucking idiot. Lucky for him Yamaha is covering it again, and we needed the
work anyway.

Shit for brains god damn idiot. I knew better that this when I was sixteen
fucking years old!

I'm reminded of Chevy Chase's rant in Christmas Vacation...


Mark Z.


Back in the late 70s we repaired a compact stereo that used RCA jacks
for speaker outputs. The customer came back with the stereo claiming
there was no output. We hooked it up and it worked fine. I had him
bring in his speakers. He had wired both the plus and minus leads to
the center connector on both speaker plugs. I kept a straight face
but unfortunately one of my techs went off on him.

the RCA speaker outputs were as silly as the preamp to amp shunts stuck
into the RCA jacks at the factory.

Anybody ever remove one of those? Was never able to pull out out with my
bare hands, didn't care enough to try with pliers.

 

"the RCA speaker outputs were as silly as the preamp to amp shunts >stuck
into the RCA jacks at the factory. "

I would actually like to have a switch on the front panel of an amp to switch the pre out/main in loop rather than their jumpers. Too easy to lose.

And then my buddy got this Marantz, a really nice one, 2325. It has the type of jack where you plug something in and it breaks the connection. I'd much rather have a switch, even if it is on the back and many of them are.

Another thing I noticed about those shunts is ain't none of the MFs ever the same size. I have had a drawerfull of them and still had to make shunts out of 12 gauge wire because none of them fit.

 

[Ralph Mowery]

"Mark Zacharias" <mark_zacharias@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:LH8Jy.77627$NL6.55721@fx22.iad...

How is it a grown man cannot understand the concept of keeping two wires
separate?

Reminds me of when I was working on the CB radios around 1973. Fellow
brought in one that had a diode inside that is connected across the 12 volt
power line that shorts and blowes the fuse when connected in reverse. I
asked him it he hooked it up backwards and he said probably as he moved it
from his truck to the car. About a week later he was back in with the same
problem. Repaired it, and a week later he was back again, but said it would
be the last time for me to repair it. I said "oh". And he said he bought
another radio so he could leave them and not have to swap back and forth.

 

[MJC]

In article <d53c2fdd-65ec-4489-ba91-1c3c8c6de636@googlegroups.com>,
dansabrservices@yahoo.com says...

I questioned what manufaturing defect "caused" this problem and did
not get an answer...

Dan

Portable devices do have to be robust to be fit for purpose...

Mike.

 

[John Heath]

On Friday, March 25, 2016 at 10:23:01 PM UTC-4, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Fri, 25 Mar 2016 05:48:15 -0500, "Mark Zacharias"
mark_zacharias@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

Cautioned him on speaker hook-ups, gave him our hand-out sheet explaining
speaker connections,
which also contains explicit warnings about shorting wires etc.

Put a 0.5 ohm xx watt resistor in series with each speaker. Paint the
resistors with whatever concoction generates the most noxious smoke
possible[1]. Then he shorts the leads again, the resistor(s) will get
hot, smoke, stink, and NOT blow up the output stages. There will be a
loss in output power, which presumably he won't notice unless he's
running low impedance or low efficiency speakers.


[1] Cotton soaked in propylene glycol or white mineral oil which is
what we used for wind tunnel airflow visualization. Propylene glycol
doesn't stink very much, but white mineral oil really reeks.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

I have heard this argument too many times as if the costumer is responsible for electrical engineering issues. The customer paid for the amplifier leading a profit for the manufacturer. It is the manufacturer that is responsible to made sure the amplifier is idiot proof. Amplifiers have current limiting circuits which means you can sort the outputs all day long without any damage. If the manufacturer can not be bothered to be responsible for their own engineering leading to output transistor failure than they are in the wrong business. There is no such thing as a costumer that is wrong as he is the one that is paying the money. The failure is always up stream from the costumer. I will now get of my soap box.

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Fri, 25 Mar 2016 05:48:15 -0500, "Mark Zacharias"
<mark_zacharias@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

Cautioned him on speaker hook-ups, gave him our hand-out sheet explaining
speaker connections,
which also contains explicit warnings about shorting wires etc.

Put a 0.5 ohm xx watt resistor in series with each speaker. Paint the
resistors with whatever concoction generates the most noxious smoke
possible[1]. Then he shorts the leads again, the resistor(s) will get
hot, smoke, stink, and NOT blow up the output stages. There will be a
loss in output power, which presumably he won't notice unless he's
running low impedance or low efficiency speakers.


[1] Cotton soaked in propylene glycol or white mineral oil which is
what we used for wind tunnel airflow visualization. Propylene glycol
doesn't stink very much, but white mineral oil really reeks.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Trevor Wilson]

On 25/03/2016 9:48 PM, Mark Zacharias wrote:

How is it a grown man cannot understand the concept of keeping two wires
separate?

Fixed a Yamaha RX-A2010 with a blown channel back in December.

Under warranty.

Big job.

Cautioned him on speaker hook-ups, gave him our hand-out sheet
explaining speaker connections,
which also contains explicit warnings about shorting wires etc.

Nevertheless he brought it back this week with the same channel blown
again.

It was all I could do not to just go off on the guy. He admitted fooling
around with the wires while the unit was powered up, and that the wires
had crossed. Exactly the sort of thing I had "educated" him about.

Fucking idiot. Lucky for him Yamaha is covering it again, and we needed
the work anyway.

Shit for brains god damn idiot. I knew better that this when I was
sixteen fucking years old!

I'm reminded of Chevy Chase's rant in Christmas Vacation...


Mark Z.

**I'm suprised that the shitbox Yammy can't handle a short. Part of the
test procedure for all the old 1970s Marantz amps, was to throw a short
circuit across the outputs. If it didn't survive, it would not be given
back to the owner (until it did).

--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

 

[pfjw@aol.com]

On Friday, March 25, 2016 at 11:53:02 PM UTC-4, John Heath wrote:

> I have heard this argument too many times as if the costumer is responsible for electrical engineering issues. The customer paid for the amplifier leading a profit for the manufacturer. It is the manufacturer that is responsible to made sure the amplifier is idiot proof. Amplifiers have current limiting circuits which means you can sort the outputs all day long without any damage. If the manufacturer can not be bothered to be responsible for their own engineering leading to output transistor failure than they are in the wrong business. There is no such thing as a costumer that is wrong as he is the one that is paying the money. The failure is always up stream from the costumer. I will now get of my soap box.

There is what I define as the Great Aunt Esmeralda issue:

Great Aunt Esmeralda is typically in her late 80s, but not frail. She has each and every one of her marbles, and is in full control of same. She is set in her ways, but neither stupid nor fearful. She resists change, but only because at her stage in life she has things right where she wants them. She also votes, every time for every election at every level and is known to do so.

As a concept, she is directly responsible for the delay of the shut-off of Analog TV in the US, until its advocates could develop a more intuitive interface. If Esmeralda had to diddle around to turn on her soaps, and missed the first five minutes of the show because the interface was not fully intuitive, she would make dammed sure her congressman knew it! Starting with her Alderman.

At the same time, Great Aunt Esmeralda understands that as a consumer, she has some responsibility to 'read the directions' as it were. And as a consumer/customer, to seek clarification when in doubt - and make damned sure that the provider of her goods and services writes directions that are able to be followed by any reasonable consumer with normal intelligence - NO MORE!

I have legacy amplifiers from AR, Dynaco, Revox and HK-Citation. EVERY ONE OF THEM cautions against shorting the outputs. Two manufacturers (AR & Dynaco) cautions against running their amplifiers with input, but no connected load. Each, in its own way, also cautions against shorting the two channels together. Several of them add protection circuits (Revox & Dynaco), some add fuses, internal or external (AR & HK) and so forth. And in every case, the directions are clear and unambiguous. Great Aunt Esmeralda would have no difficulty with them, and if she screwed up the connections resulting in a melt-down, she would be fully OK with accepting the consequences.

What you suggest is similar to making an automobile manufacturer liable for the consequences of the fact that the accelerator and brakes may be applied at the same time.... Driver error (pilot error/user error) is a real phenomenon such that reasonable accommodations must be made, but the danger of same cannot be obviated.

Against stupidity the very gods
Themselves contend in vain.

Schiller.

 

[Mark Zacharias]

"Jeff Liebermann" <jeffl@cruzio.com> wrote in message
news:m4sbfbtj3k3b1hcjnca9t86o566tel84o4@4ax.com...

On Fri, 25 Mar 2016 05:48:15 -0500, "Mark Zacharias"
mark_zacharias@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

Cautioned him on speaker hook-ups, gave him our hand-out sheet explaining
speaker connections,
which also contains explicit warnings about shorting wires etc.

Put a 0.5 ohm xx watt resistor in series with each speaker. Paint the
resistors with whatever concoction generates the most noxious smoke
possible[1]. Then he shorts the leads again, the resistor(s) will get
hot, smoke, stink, and NOT blow up the output stages. There will be a
loss in output power, which presumably he won't notice unless he's
running low impedance or low efficiency speakers.


[1] Cotton soaked in propylene glycol or white mineral oil which is
what we used for wind tunnel airflow visualization. Propylene glycol
doesn't stink very much, but white mineral oil really reeks.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

You, sir - are an evil Genius!

mz

 

[Mark Zacharias]

"Trevor Wilson" <trevor@SPAMBLOCKrageaudio.com.au> wrote in message
news:dlmorsFg49tU2@mid.individual.net...

On 25/03/2016 9:48 PM, Mark Zacharias wrote:
How is it a grown man cannot understand the concept of keeping two wires
separate?

Fixed a Yamaha RX-A2010 with a blown channel back in December.

Under warranty.

Big job.

Cautioned him on speaker hook-ups, gave him our hand-out sheet
explaining speaker connections,
which also contains explicit warnings about shorting wires etc.

Nevertheless he brought it back this week with the same channel blown
again.

It was all I could do not to just go off on the guy. He admitted fooling
around with the wires while the unit was powered up, and that the wires
had crossed. Exactly the sort of thing I had "educated" him about.

Fucking idiot. Lucky for him Yamaha is covering it again, and we needed
the work anyway.

Shit for brains god damn idiot. I knew better that this when I was
sixteen fucking years old!

I'm reminded of Chevy Chase's rant in Christmas Vacation...


Mark Z.



**I'm suprised that the shitbox Yammy can't handle a short. Part of the
test procedure for all the old 1970s Marantz amps, was to throw a short
circuit across the outputs. If it didn't survive, it would not be given
back to the owner (until it did).

--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

Not sure it was purely a direct short, or if it was a one-off. The emitter
resistor showed signs of longer term overheating. He's sure as hell doing
something wrong though. can't rule out a bad speaker either.

The whole thing requires further investigation.

He live a ways our of town from my location so a service call is at the
least inconvenient for me.

At the least I need to have him bring me the speakers and wires for
evaluation.

Mark Z.

 

[Mark Zacharias]

"Trevor Wilson" <trevor@SPAMBLOCKrageaudio.com.au> wrote in message
news:dlmorsFg49tU2@mid.individual.net...

On 25/03/2016 9:48 PM, Mark Zacharias wrote:
How is it a grown man cannot understand the concept of keeping two wires
separate?

Fixed a Yamaha RX-A2010 with a blown channel back in December.

Under warranty.

Big job.

Cautioned him on speaker hook-ups, gave him our hand-out sheet
explaining speaker connections,
which also contains explicit warnings about shorting wires etc.

Nevertheless he brought it back this week with the same channel blown
again.

It was all I could do not to just go off on the guy. He admitted fooling
around with the wires while the unit was powered up, and that the wires
had crossed. Exactly the sort of thing I had "educated" him about.

Fucking idiot. Lucky for him Yamaha is covering it again, and we needed
the work anyway.

Shit for brains god damn idiot. I knew better that this when I was
sixteen fucking years old!

I'm reminded of Chevy Chase's rant in Christmas Vacation...


Mark Z.



**I'm suprised that the shitbox Yammy can't handle a short. Part of the
test procedure for all the old 1970s Marantz amps, was to throw a short
circuit across the outputs. If it didn't survive, it would not be given
back to the owner (until it did).

--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

If I recall correctly that procedure used a variac and the test stopped an a
certain current (I think it was 4 amps) through the amp meter which was the
only "load". A modern amp would pass that test as well, but the
microprocessor-based turn-on and protection circuits would have to be
bypassed.

Mark Z.

 

[Tim Schwartz]

On 3/25/2016 11:52 PM, John Heath wrote:

On Friday, March 25, 2016 at 10:23:01 PM UTC-4, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Fri, 25 Mar 2016 05:48:15 -0500, "Mark Zacharias"
mark_zacharias@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

Cautioned him on speaker hook-ups, gave him our hand-out sheet explaining
speaker connections,
which also contains explicit warnings about shorting wires etc.

Put a 0.5 ohm xx watt resistor in series with each speaker. Paint the
resistors with whatever concoction generates the most noxious smoke
possible[1]. Then he shorts the leads again, the resistor(s) will get
hot, smoke, stink, and NOT blow up the output stages. There will be a
loss in output power, which presumably he won't notice unless he's
running low impedance or low efficiency speakers.


[1] Cotton soaked in propylene glycol or white mineral oil which is
what we used for wind tunnel airflow visualization. Propylene glycol
doesn't stink very much, but white mineral oil really reeks.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

I have heard this argument too many times as if the costumer is responsible for electrical engineering issues. The customer paid for the amplifier leading a profit for the manufacturer. It is the manufacturer that is responsible to made sure the amplifier is idiot proof. Amplifiers have current limiting circuits which means you can sort the outputs all day long without any damage. If the manufacturer can not be bothered to be responsible for their own engineering leading to output transistor failure than they are in the wrong business. There is no such thing as a costumer that is wrong as he is the one that is paying the money. The failure is always up stream from the costumer. I will now get of my soap box.

I'll have side with the manufacturer here. It is not possible to make
any product 'idiot proof' as someone will come up with a bigger idiot.

By these this standard, car manufacturers should build a car that won't
sustain any damage because the driver is reading the newspaper, texting
or talking on a phone rather than driving. Or from a mechanical side,
not add oil when the light comes on. Not possible, at least not yet.
The end user must also take reasonable care.

Shorting speaker leads is NOT something that the manufacturer can make
idiot proof without significantly increasing cost and/or compromising
performance.

Regards,
Tim

 

>"f you have an questions, please consult a real attorney. "

HA. Half of them are incompetent and the other half, well...

Used to work for one of those rental joints. Handled the repairs for the area, approximately the county. They reanted BFC SFS Fisher stereo systems using the CA-270 (discrete) amplifier. I worked on many of them. Underbuilt, and on purpose.

Looking at the PC board it was easy to see that it was designed to have commutators. The thing was considerably over 100 WPC and only had one pair of outputs per channel. You can get away with that with a commutating power supply. Also by the relay you could see the traces for what was obviously an offset detector.

All these parts were gone. By the relay all that was left was the time delay and the commutators were simply jumped out and all related components were omitted.

We replaced so many woofers because of that it ain't funny. Eventually the service manager got a source for some practically bulletproof woofers, I mean woofers that would stand up to 60 volts DC until the fuse blows. At least that was solved. Kinda.

Thing is, transistors and diodes are cheap. If I were on that side of that desk I would have them in there. However, in the US at least, the quarterly report is king.

Like this joke... A new CEO of a company gets three envelopes from the old CEO, tells him open them when things get tough. Sales drop later and he opens the first envelope and there is a note saying "Blame your predecessor". He does and all is fine, but later then sales and profits drop again, he opens the seconfd envelope and the note says "Reorganize". Well that works but then things go badly again later so he opens the third envelope and the note inside says "Get three envelopes and..."

As long as we publicly trade debt on these companies, they are bound to suck up the most money every day possible, It is fucking up the world, and the environment. In fact, if we cared enough to do something about it we would take the "green" attitude and let the democrats have at it. Laws that say you have to have parts for TVs n shit for like five years or so, instead of having them no longer available even during the warranty period. (this has happened) But even with that, can the government control the prices ? This is where they fucked up on the ACA, the price controls are not firm. Right now health insurance companies want doctors and hospitals to fuck them out of as much money as possible so they can make 20 % on it. Shit, oil companies would suck a mile of donkey dick to make 20 %.

The informed and non-addicted consumer is the best weapon here. Like "My TV was only two years old and it couldn't be fixed, I went to buy one with a long warranty but they had none, so now I DO NOT HAVE A TV". Start that shit and you won't need a grass roots lobby organization, the TV networks, cable companies and even Hollywood would do the lobbying for you.

But there is no solidarity among the sheeple. No chance to put up a serious boycott of anything. Anything. This is the age of instant gratification. Pitiful fucking species they are.