jimrockford

I seem to have killed my Klipsch ProMedia 4.1 speakers. It's a long story but might be good for a laugh or two. Or think of this as a public service message.

Alright, so I'm watching Deadwood on my computer and my wife asks me to turn it down since she's going to bed. I go one better by putting on a set of headphones. A few minutes later, she sticks her head around the corner and asks if I'll also fold a load of laundry when it finishes drying. No problem I say...

With the headphones plugged into the appropriate jack on the side of one of the Klipsch satellites, I kicked back and continued watching. After a while, I remembered the laundry. I pressed pause, retrieved the clothes, and threw them in a pile next to my desk. I put the headphones back on and restarted the show. When I reached down to pick up a t-shirt, it let loose with a bundle of static electricity. It sounded like a popcorn popper at full tilt inside my over-the-ear headphones. When I shook the t-shirt free of the last few socks clinging to it, I experiencing a deafening pop as a charge zapped my ear hard enough to make it sting.

I threw the headphones on the desk and said, "Whoa, that was cool!". But without giving it much more thought, I folded the shirt and then put the headphones back on. Naturally, when I reached down to pick up a big, fluffy, cotton sweatshirt, I was greeted by another cacophonous barrage of high voltage jolts that stung both ears several times.

As I'm sure you've guessed by now, the headphones were no longer in peak condition. In fact, they didn't work at all. As I sat there thinking what a bummer it was that I'd just blown my headphones, I noticed the light on the speaker satellite was no longer illuminated. Crap!

I unplugged the headphones and tried to power on the speakers. No luck. I plugged the headphones directly into the audio out on my soundcard to make sure I hadn't fried it. The soundcard still worked, but my headphones were definitely blown. They sounded awful. I found a second pair and tried them - they worked fine.

I concentrated on the speakers. I plugged them into a different power outlet with no joy. I disassembled the subwoofer and found a fuse on the power circuit - not blown. I disassembled the control box on the satellite but couldn't detect any obvious problems. Everything seems ok, but the speakers definitely don't work.

Any idea what I've fried? Obviously, the static discharge took the path of least resistance which happened to be through my headphones. I'm just not sure what part of the speakers that would burn out.

I'll probably just replace them but man I loved those speakers. It seems a shame to just give up on them. I'm sure it's an easy fix for someone that knows what they're doing. Anybody care to help a guy out?

The moral of the story? Make your wife do the laundry.

Localmotion

laughin my arse off

good luck with the speakers

CynicX

how are the wired...if they are like mine, basicially the sub plugs into the sound card and all the speakers plug into the sub...there is a control/receiver built into it....if you were to send high voltage back through it via the head phones you could permanently damage the control some how....there is alot of voltage in a static shock, not alot of amps though....the fuse in there might protect voltage spike from the other direction but not coming from the headphones....

=ACID RAIN=

No really, that sux! It's kinda funny though, as long as you're not the one who has it happen to them

It sounds like ground for that set was after the headphone jack, which is a bad idea. Usually I think all plugs/jacks have a ground, but one way or another this one didn't short to that. Instead it passed through the control circuitry and then to ground, naturally frying the set. Since undetectable amounts of static can fry electronics, the charge you carried was definitely plenty

Even if there is no ground on the klipsch set, the first thing it hits on the computer is ground since negative and ground are continuous in computer cases. That's a good thing, since otherwise it would have passed through the card - taking it out - then the motherboard