Mackie Mix8

Used the mixer for about 10 months, just home practice, nothing heavy duty. One night, on powering on the mixer, a loud buzz appeared in the right ear of my earphones that were inserted in the mixer’s dedicated earphone input. I pulled out the headphone jack a few times, twisted it around in the socket, which didn’t help: the right ear was still dead. I then plugged in a set of Apple earpods to double-check. Not only was the right ear dead, but I felt the earbuds heating up inside my ears to the point they actually hurt and burned my inner-ear skin. I pulled the earbuds out and touched the cable, which was hot. I pulled out the headphone jack, it was blistering hot.

The earphones I was using at the time to monitor the mix were permanently damaged, the right ear doesn’t work. I was using a pair of inexpensive Sennheisers while waiting to buy Sony MDR7506. I’m now glad I hadn’t come round to buying the Sonys, they would’ve been fried, too. The earpods I plugged into the mixer are rendered unusable: they now distort even at low volume levels.

My whole sound gear was running through that mixer, which is around EUR 4000 all counted. What happened to the headphones input could’ve happened to any other input on the mixer, which would’ve caused damage to some of the quite expensive gear, like Torpedo Live or some analogue synths. I’m not even sure some long-term damage was not caused by faulty contacts at some other inputs/outputs on the mixer, the consequences may still show.