My amplifier goes to 20.

[brooksmoses]

So. My stereo amplifier -- a quite heavy old beast in brushed aluminum and faux rosewood that I got for free when a professor I knew was upgrading his system -- has been having intermittent problems. I recently found the manual for it, and the manual said that these problems can come from problems in the speakers or speaker wires, so I decided to test it for a while with the speakers unplugged.

This, of course, raises a small problem. How does one actually test it without speakers? Well, it's got a headphone jack. And I've got a pair of cheap giveaway airline headphones handy.... So I plugged in the headphones, put a CD of Mannheim Steamroller into the changer, and cranked it up a bit. And it's actually about the right volume to listen to.

The right volume to listen to ... in the room.

So I sat the headphones on the desk, and listened to it for a while, until the tinniness started to drive suzimoses batty. Out of curiousity, I went to go look and see where exactly I had the volume set. It was set on 14. On a scale that goes up to 20.

So, yeah, before I plug the speakers in, I think I'll turn it back down. To eleven.

Comments

[oldsma.livejournal.com]

20? Wow, cool.

So--was it the speaker wires?

MAO

[brooksmoses]

I don't know. Unfortunately, it's being too intermittent to really tell; I thought it was working fine, so I hooked the speakers back up, and it worked fine for quite a while, and then started cutting out, so I disconnected one speaker at a time, and it kept cutting in and out regardless of which one was hooked up.

I'm now starting to suspect that it's overheating for some reason, but I don't know, and unfortunately don't have time to fool with it for another couple of weeks, probably.