My wife and I love cats, but don't have any because my hifi rig. In current form it is dangerous for little humans (don't have any of those either) & cats alike, with all those tubes and wires hanging about. It is also located in the hall, so I don't have any doors to close to keep kitty away.

Does anyone have practical advise to have both hifi & kitty to co-exist in relative safety?

Datubie,

I sincerely feel that preventing yourself from living with Cats just because “all those tubes and wires hanging” is the most imaginable bogus excuse.

You humans imagine that Cats understand the protocols of inner-human communication and the conventions of human logic but it is nothing could be further from truth. We Cats really do not care not only about your “tubes and wires” but also about you, the two-leg-walking animals who foolishly believe that they run the show.

The question was: what we, the primitive species, who do not have even short tails, could do in order to make Cats to bless our lives with their presence? The answer would be: do not presume that our humane self-entertainment (tubes, wires, kids, etc) worth more worry then the wellbeing of the noblest subordinates of Bast. Let Cats free run across all those cable-elevators, speaker grills and record sleeve. If they destroy a few of them then it is a wonderful opportunity for you, the humans, to reflect what is REALLY important for our lives: the few bucks worth peace of plastic or the acknowledgment of somebody who is truly native, pure, unblemished and ordinal, and the most important - by somebody who can demonstrate to you the REAL value of the things.

Datubie wrote:

I'm actually concerned that all that high voltage and heat might fry the cat if it accidentally broke a tube.

I do not think so. I would not present myself as some kind of specials in feline behavior but I think that our worries that Cats suddenly could embrace human motivation and begin to electrocute themselves are not justified. Many, ~15 years ago I asked my veterinarian if it known that Cats electrocute themselves by chewing through wires. He said that for 26 years that he treats Cat he never heard about it. The same goes to the subject of the “broken tubes”. How many broken a tubes have you even seen? I never saw any, unless I opened them up myself. I think Cats do not give a damn about anything unless it moves or could be eaten. If you do not stick your 845 tube into tuna before you place it in amp I do not think your Cat will even care about it.

When I had Lamms ML2 amps my Koshka loved to sit atop Lamm’s transformers. Furthermore, now, whan I have a hell of lot of tube in my home, she freely walks across my Melquiades amp completely ignoring the tubes. I did not see her doing it when the Milqs are on but I have seen that she was rooming across working Lamms and neither she nor Lamms cared about each other.

A Cat will scratch speaker’s grills. With my current state of mind it sounds like music to my ears but… I have no speaker with grills. When I was younger and stupider in my perceptions of Cats I was trying to make my Cat do not scratch grills. Her doctor gave me Bitter Apple and suggested me to spill it near the grill – reportedly Cats hate Bitter Apple. I did and my Cat, believe it or not, she actually drunk out that paddle of the Bitter Apple. Eventually I was able to override her tendency for grill scratching by finding for her a scratching poll with the very precise granularly (that should be changed while she drop up and her fingers getting bigger.)  Eventually, while I was getting more mature in my relationship with her I realized that it was all unnecessary….

You see, she lives in your hours and this is her home. So, let the Cat to be a Cat and let her to do whatever she wants. How important the $20 worth grill compare to her pleasure to be who she is and to do what she wants. I use to be upset when she broke or destroyed something but eventually I learned to recognize her actions as God’s blessing. What would it be alternative? To live with a creatures who understands, obeys and afraid you?

We both appreciate a big Class A amp!

Datubie wrote:

My wife and I love cats, but don't have any because my hifi rig. In current form it is dangerous for little humans (don't have any of those either) & cats alike, with all those tubes and wires hanging about. It is also located in the hall, so I don't have any doors to close to keep kitty away. Does anyone have practical advise to have both hifi & kitty to co-exist in relative safety?

I think Cats and HiFi together is a no-go.

I have seen so many equipment part been destroyed because of cat fur.

The most fragile HiFi parts are the mechanical ones.

Let other people have cats as pets.................If you have HiFi you value, keep cats outside with the only purpose to catch rats and mice.

"dolph"

guy sergeant wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfTFTI4DvKU