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Well . . . Not really an audio death per se. The cable had to be replaced. As a kitten, my cat Frankie (blue eyes) bit through Nordost Red Dawn speaker cable breaking and exposing the silver wires. He did the same with some Blue Heaven interlink cable. Those days are over. Today, he will sometimes jump and climb to the top of the Martin-Logan Prodigys. I try to keep his nails clipped so no punctures yet. He has done the nail stretching on the M&K 5000 MII sub grill. Just a few pulls so far after two years. Frank has sat, stretched, slept, and cleaned himself on top of the Linn LP12. This is every day. It

Does vomiting in a "radiogram" at a late '60's party count?

Amber Series 70 amp. What a great sounding SS amp! Anyway, I touched red and black speaker leads while the amp was on. Attempts to get it repaired failed. Sigh!

The most typcial of all (I imagine): 400 watts through a speaker capable of 200. Result: re-cone.

Yea, I trashed a few styli in my time. Just too careless and whoops off came the diamond or the cantelever or whatever. Good thing they were cheap to replace! I have also trashed a few cables, one Monster S-Video cable, I should have had a longer one when I pulled the equipment rack away from the TV rack. Also trashed a Monster audio cable, it was cheap so what do I expect huh. Also I remember I got carried away with my NAD 2200PE amp several times. Playing some of my favorite rock-N-roll blew out my tweeters and mid-bass drivers in my Polk SDA-2 speakers several times. That was perhaps the most costly to replace those over the years, now I watch the volume more! It's still been fun listening to all that music, but I'm sure I'll probably toast something else someday. Being a technician help immensely when disaster strikes!

I take good care of my equipment. I just traded a QUAD amp and AGI preamp that were 23 years old, with their original packaging and literature, and was told that the stuff was in better shape than most of the demos they had in the store. These pieces moved with me to Europe, the AGI had to be converted to 50HZ 220 V, and then reconverted back when I returned to the US. I wish all components would be sold with a switchable voltage.

Oops . . . I was reinstalling my cool (expensive) Sony home A/V receiver (warranty recently expired, of course) at a new house. After wiring, while putting it in its shelf, I adroitly managed to stick the loose end of the antenna wire in through the air vents in the top of the case. Power "ON" results: grounding, cool lightning show, explatives, expensive fried processor, newly invented explatives.

Destroyed a rear speaker in my car by accidentally putting a wet umbrella over it and getting the paper cone wet, deforming it and eventually causing it to fail.

i burn it because my mother-in-law loves it

My cats used my Apogee Duetta speakers as a scratching post. Before that the Duettas sucked the life out of an NAD 2200 power amp.

I allowed the rat out of the cage. It chewed the speaker cable. I don't think the critter likes my taste in music.

Just for fun I dumped full power into an EPI-100 speaker playing Bowie's "Panic In Detroit." The tweeter finally blew and I had it repaired. Many years later it was a sad day when my Fischer 800-T receiver blew its power supply.

Building speakers, forgot to install the crossover. Fried the mid-range and the tweeters. Smelled like hell!

My cousin played a test CD that went down to 5hz at an extreme volume -- I was not present. It killed my KLIPSCH. I have since had it repaired.

I accidentally dipped my earphones in a cup of cofee. They never worked again, even after drying them. Luckily, there was a better model, which I hesitantly bought. I was glad afterwards that I had found a better pair. Maybe it was just time to upgrade.

I was DJ-ing with an 80's Realistic reciever on its last legs, unwisely using it as a separate sub amp, when one of the IC's went up in smoke. I had it repaired at my local RadioShack store and it still lives on, to drive my 12-inch DVC sub.

Unplugging interconnects with the power on. Good way to lose lots of equipment . . .

Crossed speaker leads and blew transistors on amp

Blew up a pair of Celestions trying to mix tracks next door to a rock band. In all fairness, the amp gave me plenty of warning.

A CD Player with a propensity of skipping was put to death one evening while trying to listen to a delightful recording of Brahms German Requium. One skip too many . . . and it recieved a boot to the face plate. Finally, an excuse to buy the Rotel I'd wanted for some time.

ohhhh yaaaa . . . I've blown many amps, but then again, I work in an audio/amplifier design house, so it's no surprise. Most amp kills are from evaluating new designs and finger slippage while measuring parameters. I've seen 4 ohm, 250Watt resistive loads explode like firecrackers and amps literally on fire. Scary!!

When a 5 amp fuse in my Phase Linear 400 amp blew, I wanted to see if I had a component failure or a defective fuse. I didn't have a 5 amp fuse on hand, but I did have a 30 amp, and I only wanted to see if it would power up. That was a mistake! I had to replace one entire channel and part of the other!

I dropped my beloved Aiwa ADF770 cassette deck, after 12 years of valiant service, on my hard tile floor. Cracked the board. Took it to the shop, they screwed it up beyong salvage. I now have 800 cassette tapes of dubious value!

7up may be the un-cola, however, it sure does a heck of a lot of damage when accidentaly poured down an Audio Research preamp

I was auditioning a new subwoofer. When I connected the sub by picking up signal off the back of my amps, I blew one amp by shorting the binding posts with the thin wires of the sub feed.

Came close once. I was manually cueing a record, using the finger hold, when the doorbell rang. I jumped like I was stuck with a cattle prod and launched the tonearm, which hit its upper stop and then came crashing down on the record clamp, which the stylus scraped around on for several seconds before I gathered my wits and rescued it. Amazingly, the Lyra Lydian Beta suffered no perceptible ill effects! How's that for robust MC construction! The paperboy thus managed to escape with his life.

never !

How could anyone do something like this? I've been into the high end for 45 years, and never destroyed anything! Sounds like outright carelessness to me!!

I worked in Audio for ten years. When we would get frustrated we found that taking a baseball bat to a component or two quite refreshing. I won't go into what happens to your equiptment while it is in for repair if you are a dick to the sales staff . . .

Frustrated with the sound of an old Teac turntable, I dropped it on the floor, said goodbye, and threw it down garbage chute.