What is the most expensive mistake you have made?

Arse - you reminded me of another one... My Audiolab 8009A's transformer started making VERY suspect noises one day; it turned out the washing machine's motor was causing it to hum, but only on the slow revs speed (each rotation of the drum caused the tranny to vibrate BADLY). Didn't realise this was mains bourne and normal, so bought a Rega Mira 2000 and stuck the Audiolab in the cupboard.

Not so bad though, as the Rega's in my bedroom system, and the Audiolab's making my mate PD in Reading very happy - on LOOOONG term loan!

 

Bad purchase decisions: B&W 602s, should have gone second hand with my £300; PM6010 & CD6000 for £500 (back in 2000), again, should have gone second hand with the money.

Costly accidents: melting one of the amp modules in a rotel 6ch power amp. put it into bridged mode and stuck a 6ohm speaker on it... needless to say, it's now a 4ch amp; Removed the volume knob on a musical B2 cause i didn't like that it started at 9o'clock, when puting it back on I snapped the volume pot off of the pcb... cost me £56 to have repaired, after I'd just bought the thing for £50 2 weeks before...

 

As a teenager, I once proved that driving a 25 Watt ILP amp into clipping will cause a pair of Isophon tweeters to catch fire

I once switched off my Crimson Elektrik power amp, and while the capacitors were still draining, touched one of the inputs on the back (can't remember why). An interesting buzz issued from the speakers. That's an interesting buzz, I thought to myself. Then I noticed an interesting smell. Later that day, one Crimson power amp module was packed up and dispatched to Crimson Electrik for replacement of rather black looking resistors amongst other things :shame:

 

My biggest mistake was buying a house built by David Wilson Homes.... total cowboys who should be ashamed of the quality of their so-called 'craftsmen'. If you are looking at new-build houses avoid them like the plague.

And if anyone from David Wilson Homes sees this and objects.... I'll see you in court.

 

Whilst putting an 8' curtain pole up I manged to thwack one of my speakers with one end. Had a look at the cabinet which looked fine, then noticed the inverted tweeter - doh. managed to pop it out and there was no difference in sound but couldnt live with the creased appearance of it so had it replaced £20.

 

COOL!!!! Wish I'd been there to see that

I saw an old Philips "music centre" kill its own speakers once - that was pretty cool. The tape deck had "DNR" rather than Dolby on - and needless to say, it didn't do much

Alanbeeb: *ALL* newbuild homes should be avoided like the plaque; overpriced, undersized, and shite. My sister's Ideal/Persimmon one is a direct example - duff electrics, bodged joinery, leaky windows, broken doorbell - and all that when she moved in to her "brand new" house in 1996. You should see how tatty the place looks now. The 10 year house builder's guarantee isn't worth the paper its printed on either - seemingly doesn't cover ANYTHING really useful apart from the brickwork!

 

Yep - when I hear stories from others about their bad luck with new houses actually I don't fell too bad at all as the house is basically sound, just lots of annoying niggles that a proper builder would have fixed or got right first time. If their customer service people could give a toss and get things done I probably would be happy.

The DWH house is not the first new house I've had, before I had a Wimpey standard detached house and it was almost flawless... not one significant problem that I had to get them to fix at all in 3 years I was there - it is, or used to be possible to get properly built new houses.

It was impossible to buy a decent existing property in Edinburgh a couple of years ago, the market went completely mad and the Scottish system of sealed bids meant prices were completely stupid - houses priced at offers over £295k sold for over £500k!
So new build was the only option as they sell at a fixed price.

 

Edingburgh - the new London! OUCH!

And I thought Exeter was totally OTT, price-wise...

 

Its rocked quite a lot in South Manchester lately, a house two doors from me has just gone on the market for £200,000, the house next door to me on the other side, a four bed terrace with a large garage has gone on the market for £350,000.

In the village green (if you can call it that since its actually a large suburb) its not common for 2 bed terraces to sell for £250,000.

These are all old victorian/edwardian houses. They are built like a tank, my uncle lived in a new flat for work purposes for few months it was brand new, he discovered that the wiring was simple well not wired. They had just randomly joined wires together and even the switches were not wired correctly, basicaly it was a fire hazzard.

If I ever buy a house I will not buy a new one, there is this new housing developedment in West Didsbury, built on an old hospital grounds, they are asking almost £300,000 for 2 bed appartments and some of the four bed houses they are asking £500,000 for. They have hyped the located up when in reality its stuck between two suburban centres.

There is new converted church development in Moss Side and they are trying to sell 1 bed room appartments for £169,000 in probably one of the roughest parts of the country.

I really don't understand why anybody would pay these stupid amounts of money and don't even get me started on the Haceinda appartments.

I am out of the property market anyway unless I buy some boarded up terrace in Salford.

 

erm i should had specified that this was intended to be hifi related mistakes like accidentally plugging your TV outputinto the rca on the back of the power amp and setting your tv on fire.

but hey talk about what you want!

 

I've also managed to trash stylii...
I fitted a Clearaudio Aurum Beta S, had some m8s round that eve to listen and managed to bend the stylus.
Luckily it's replaceable, but still cost £190!
When the new one came back it lasted 2 weeks before I bent that as well.
So far this cart's cost me £255 to buy, plus £380 to repair :EEK:
Good thing I like the sound of it, and a good thing I didn't buy the Lyra!

 

buying a house with an ex.