When I heard this I didn't believe it but it's true. The owner of a club a band I run sound for plays in gave my brother a call. It seem his string of bad luck with his PA came to a firey peak. After getting soaked for $10,000 on a crappy Sound Tech system (don't ask how a store could sell a small pa with no power and no board for that much), then dumping it and buying an EV eliminator system and Mackie board. He hired a permanent (so called) engineer. I just don't know where they find these guys. Last Friday this guy did what I thought was impossible. The previous week he already blew the EV subs.

The next week after starting the night out with the system sounding like crap and low volume,he blew the monitors and also fire started coming out of the eliminator main cabs. Not smoke, real flames that the owner had to put out with a mop bucket. I stress this is not a fabrication, this information was straight from the owner to my brother. Now he has to be without the EV's for a month after just purchasing them.

Has anyone heard of this. As far as I know the amp didn't fry. I'm kind of amazed at this and how there are guys out there getting paid when they obviously know nothing.

One more quickie. I went to see some friends who have a great Metal band in the area. We got there and were amazed at how pathetic the house PA sounded. The cabs were respectible enough. The power rack was sufficient. Then I looked at the EQ's in his FOH rack and all 3 of them had the biggest smiles, with boosts in the lows and highs. Unreal, and that guy also was getting paid on a weekly basis.

Does anyone else have any experiences like these? I was an engineer years ago and now I am working again for a local band and am trying to learn as much as I can. I will be posting more to get advice about setting up their PA and possibly upgrading the mains.


Posted by Geoff Thistlethwaite on September 01, 2002

try this link

www.live-audio.com/messages/archive3/141618.html

Geoff Thistlethwaite


Posted by Andy Peters on August 29, 2002

Not the whole PA, just a monitor wedge.

Had the Screaming Trees in Hoboken for a show. At some point during the show, bassist Van Connor catches my eye (I'm babysitting for their BE), and gestures at the wedge next to him. I bulldoze my way through the kids, and see the thing's on fire! So, I unplug the speaker cable, and douse it with my beer. I shrug, Van laughs, the rock continues.

--a


Posted by David Barnett on August 30, 2002

Once in the early 1990s, School of Fish played here, and caught a 12" JBL 2202 FOH midrange speaker on fire. I wasn't there that night, being on tour at the time, but the reports I heard from onlookers were that the meters on all the amps in the rack were pegged for their whole set, showing no dynamics at all, until finally the one speaker flamed out during "Three Strange Days." The security guy who wielded the extinguisher made it a point to give their backline a good coating while he was at it.

I walked in the next day and the 2202 had already been replaced, but there was a perfect 12" hole in the grille cloth.

--dnb


Posted by Dave Lynes on August 29, 2002

You carried your beer with you all the way up to the stage?!? Through all the kids?!? WOW!!! Now, that's planning ahead!!! :^)