William_Gravem
Stunt Coordinator
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2004
- Messages
- 113
I am posting my story of HT success despite a pair of overly active cats in hope that it will come in handy to someone out there:
I was nervous before shelling out a bunch of money on a sub that my cats might destroy it. They get into everything imaginable, and despite all sorts of different attempts with water guns, glass jars of pennies, etc, they continue to contently scratch furniture, jump up on tables, eat my plants, and all the other assorted bad things that bad cats do. Most frightening is the tendency one of my cats has to roll over on his back near the edge of my sofa, and claw the underbelly while pulling himself along... I pictured him reaching into where the driver is on a down-firing sub and shredding it (any front firing sub was simply out of the question to begin with.)
But I got my sub anyway. And I love it... LOVE IT! But while this post could easily derail into another SVS-lovefest, I'm going to reign it in and get back on track. The cats were curious about this beautiful large, deep-red, mahogany box of thunder right from the start. Interestingly enough, the more I pumped up the bass, the more curious they got: poking around, rubbing up against it, even as the room shook from that famous ring-drop.
After I cranked through the 3 extended edition LotR's, and loved every room quaking minute, I decided to see what this thing could do. That's right... I'm talking depth charges. I threw in U-571, removed one of my foam port blockers, and cranked up the gain. The cats were immediately drawn to it. They bolted straight for it and began poking around. I tried pausing it, turning the volume up, and suddenly hitting play to scare them away... it did nothing. In fact, one became instantly determined to find out what was going on under there and stuck his head right between the integrated bass plate and the main body of the sub. I panicked, grabbed the cat as he was about to reach in, and pulled him out. Clearly, I was going to have to do something to protect my sub.
Luckily, I had some extra lengths of doublesided tape that I've used to try to protect my sofa. It comes in strips that are about 2x12 inches, and are clear. I've found them relatively ineffective protecting my sofa, as it a) makes the sofa ugly as the transparent tape is quite apparent on the sofa's upholstery, and b) only protected the 2x12 strip it covered while the cats scratched around it.
But because I merely had to stop the cat from trying to reach past the border of the subs underbelly, this seemed like it might work. So I took 6 strips, and placed 3 on each of the front sides of the integrated bass plate, and 3 along the edge directly above. It's invisible to the casual observer, and because it is not directly below the driver, it does not impact the quality of the bass produced in the slightest. The next time the cats got curious (let's face it, depth charge scenes rock) they encountered an uncomfortable shield stickiness.
It worked like a charm!
I would like to point out that I have made a personal decision not to declaw my cats. I do not like the idea and will not do it, however I respect the rights of other cat owners to do this if they wish. I ask that you please show me the same respect and refrain from posting any replies that suggest I should have declawed them in the first place, lock them out of my home, or make any other suggestions as to how I treat my cats.
I apologize for the lengthy post, again, I hope this helps someone out there.
---Bill
I was nervous before shelling out a bunch of money on a sub that my cats might destroy it. They get into everything imaginable, and despite all sorts of different attempts with water guns, glass jars of pennies, etc, they continue to contently scratch furniture, jump up on tables, eat my plants, and all the other assorted bad things that bad cats do. Most frightening is the tendency one of my cats has to roll over on his back near the edge of my sofa, and claw the underbelly while pulling himself along... I pictured him reaching into where the driver is on a down-firing sub and shredding it (any front firing sub was simply out of the question to begin with.)
But I got my sub anyway. And I love it... LOVE IT! But while this post could easily derail into another SVS-lovefest, I'm going to reign it in and get back on track. The cats were curious about this beautiful large, deep-red, mahogany box of thunder right from the start. Interestingly enough, the more I pumped up the bass, the more curious they got: poking around, rubbing up against it, even as the room shook from that famous ring-drop.
After I cranked through the 3 extended edition LotR's, and loved every room quaking minute, I decided to see what this thing could do. That's right... I'm talking depth charges. I threw in U-571, removed one of my foam port blockers, and cranked up the gain. The cats were immediately drawn to it. They bolted straight for it and began poking around. I tried pausing it, turning the volume up, and suddenly hitting play to scare them away... it did nothing. In fact, one became instantly determined to find out what was going on under there and stuck his head right between the integrated bass plate and the main body of the sub. I panicked, grabbed the cat as he was about to reach in, and pulled him out. Clearly, I was going to have to do something to protect my sub.
Luckily, I had some extra lengths of doublesided tape that I've used to try to protect my sofa. It comes in strips that are about 2x12 inches, and are clear. I've found them relatively ineffective protecting my sofa, as it a) makes the sofa ugly as the transparent tape is quite apparent on the sofa's upholstery, and b) only protected the 2x12 strip it covered while the cats scratched around it.
But because I merely had to stop the cat from trying to reach past the border of the subs underbelly, this seemed like it might work. So I took 6 strips, and placed 3 on each of the front sides of the integrated bass plate, and 3 along the edge directly above. It's invisible to the casual observer, and because it is not directly below the driver, it does not impact the quality of the bass produced in the slightest. The next time the cats got curious (let's face it, depth charge scenes rock) they encountered an uncomfortable shield stickiness.
It worked like a charm!
I would like to point out that I have made a personal decision not to declaw my cats. I do not like the idea and will not do it, however I respect the rights of other cat owners to do this if they wish. I ask that you please show me the same respect and refrain from posting any replies that suggest I should have declawed them in the first place, lock them out of my home, or make any other suggestions as to how I treat my cats.
I apologize for the lengthy post, again, I hope this helps someone out there.
---Bill
