Yesterday. This was yesterday. This was DUMB. Setting up some old stereo stuff I'd had in storage for over a decade (divorce, it makes life interesting) and hooked up a small pair of Radio Shack speakers I have had kicking around for twenty years to test the thing. These had a strange tweeter called a "linaeum". Also an old semi powerful speaker amplifier that can push some decent power. (Looks like this

Things I forgot: The new to me turntable didn't need a special turntable input. My long-unseen pre-amplifier has a turntable input, and is set up for a very low output cartridge (moving coil). Those settings are internal, so you can't see them. When putting old speakers back into service, you REALLY REALLY NEED to pop the grills off and look at them!

All these things combined resulted in the following.

Me, in my excitement, fired everything up, cued up a long stored single (Donald Fagan: I.G.Y.), set the volume to (what i thought was) a moderate level, and dropped the cue lever.

What i got: BBBRRRRRAABBBPZZZAPBLAPBZZZZZCRklcrklbzzzbzzzbzzz

What happened? The didn't-need-to-be-amplified sound from the turntable had been SUPER SUPER DUPER EXTRA AMPLIFIED and then fed into a speaker amplifier that had enough power to nuke the little speakers from orbit. Compounding the FU? The foam speaker surrounds had rotted. The upshot? LAUNCHED THE WOOFER CONES AND SMOKED THE TWEETERS. The spiders even tore off! Never have I ever so thoroughly destroyed equipment this way. I'm seriously bummed because these were really cool old speakers! Thankfully not my only ones though.

TL;DR: Fired up some old equipment, went fuller send than expected, and freed the woofers from captivity.