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Hire Nightmares

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viceaudio View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote viceaudio Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Hire Nightmares
    Posted: 13 January 2011 at 10:38pm
Thought it would be interesting and amusing to hear peoples hire nightmares. I'm sure there's a wealth of them out there. I appreciate that if used unscrupulously this info could be used to the hire companies dis-advantage...but forewarned is forearmed ?. I'll kick off with a couple of mine...

I rented out a pair of Pioneer CDJ100's about 2 years ago. Guy had them for 3 days longer than he agreed and I thought that was the last I'd seen of them until he sent another guy to return them...with only half the cash but relieved and vowing to take more details and photographs of people in future I was sorta happy. Come the next time I used them myself on a job and neither CDJ worked. The track would play for a few seconds then display an error code (can't remember the number). I took them to my trusted repair guy - both lasers shot @ 100 quid each. Seems they swapped out their lasers assemblies for mine !!. Guy never answered my calls and then lo and behold phone number off forever.I accept that both lasers could possibly have failed at the same time - but he reported no problem during the 5 days he had them, they had been serviced by a professional to clean the lasers and I'd never had any problems before. I service quite a few bars and clubs gear - I've only had to replace 2 lasers in 5 years over about 30 cd players so simultaneous failure seems highly unlikely.

That episode made me have carbon copy hire forms made with contract details on them, even so didn't stop some junkie scumbag renting an amp from me TWICE before he finally just did one with one of my Lab 4000's. Been to the cops but the only chance to find him is when he gets pulled for speeding or something like that and I'm sure said amp is long gone...beware - scumbags everywhere !!!.

Apart from taking photos of people, taking deposits etc I'd be interested in other ideas to combat these problems...laser ones a hard one to prove though...

On the brighter side a pissed Norwegian student deposited a pint into the back of one of my lab 4000's during a recent xmas gig. Credit to Lab Gruppen, we were only alerted by that dreadful smell of burning electronics rather than any audible disaster shortly before it failed, but only on 1 channel.Linked the subs to same channel and we were back on. One replaced triac and a clean - 30 quid and it was as good as ever. The culprit was never identified but the organiser coughed up for the repair with a shrug and a smile...


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iand4403 View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote iand4403 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 January 2011 at 10:50pm
this is probably the worst I've had so far..

Luckily I only lost a DE12 diaphragm and gained some valuable experience.

Edited by iand4403 - 13 January 2011 at 10:52pm
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iand4403 View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote iand4403 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 January 2011 at 10:51pm
oops double post

Edited by iand4403 - 13 January 2011 at 10:51pm
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Peter Moller View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Peter Moller Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 January 2011 at 11:59pm
did a dry hire to a school some years back.. they were doing some theatre or something like that... entire contents of a 60*60*120 cm cable trunk were returned with loads of packing tape still stuck on the uncoiled cables and stuffed into 3 large binbags...

Years ago I had a regular customer ( a DJ ) who rented racks and stacks off me... the typical setup was a W-bin and a 12" + horn midtop per side - and a pair of Crown amps ( powertech 2+3 and a crossover )....  4 out of 5 times he returned the kit with fried HF drivers and happily paid for new diaphragms - instead of following my suggestion and renting a second pair of midtops for less than the HF diaphragms cost him..

wrt. to theft etc... I avoid doing dry hires to strangers - unless its just small items...  Apart from that the kit only goes out with either me, or a trusted operator..
real phone no: +45 four zero six two four four nine eight ( using obvious anti phone spam encryption )
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mykey- View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote mykey- Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 January 2011 at 3:20am
Once had the system come back from a dry hire and found the EQ set Like this
 



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FlipC View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote FlipC Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 January 2011 at 3:32am
LOL

my cousin use to do that and I tried so hard to make him understand why that isnt good.

SMAART is SMART!
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mykey- View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote mykey- Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 January 2011 at 3:56am
....and nothing was blown!!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote FlipC Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 January 2011 at 8:05am
Maybe all the distortion caused them to keep it turned down a bit...
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brokenjoe View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote brokenjoe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 January 2011 at 9:04am
friend lent a church 4x nexo ps15s and 6 ps8s.. and had them returned with pretty much every single driver completely blown.

still can't work out how as both systems are near indestructable! the ps8s were used with their dedicated amp / module and the ps15s had all the sense leads and their controller ..

AT A CHURCH!!!
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dymondaudio View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dymondaudio Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 January 2011 at 10:09am

dry hired a rig to a small pub in Cornwall about 12 months ago double 15" subs (Ohm) + 15" + 1" tops (HK Audio), with two Yamaha P7000s Amps, controlled with a dcx2496 with limiter's set. 

The pub holds about 50 people tops as it is smaller than most living rooms. So I thought the above should be adequate. approx 3K wrms should be enough for 50 people in a pokey little pub right?
 
Came back the following day at the agreed time, no sight or sound of anyone, long story short it took me 5 hours of coming back before anyone turned up (they live in the flat above for goodness sake).
 
Got the system back again, tested it at the lock-up = subs + HF blown.  Contacted them, didn't wanna know, they were rude to say the least!
 
Moral of the story is test it before packing it down, but I was so furious and late for other hires that I just ripped it down and got outta there.
 
Never, never again.
 
The pub in St Austell, Cornwall shall remain nameless.
If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote entrobang Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 January 2011 at 11:01am
liking thiis post, so what do u do when hiring out as this is something i wanna do... take bank details ?? even so u cant use them... take passport but if they dont come back what can u do with that?? short of taking a deposit for the whole value whats best.. i guess passport asnd a utility bill with name and address on plus deposit and photo ?
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brokenjoe View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote brokenjoe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 January 2011 at 11:03am
police don't really do a hell of a lot.. majority of taking ID is to prove to the insuarance you did what you could to prevent it from happening! 
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