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Electrostatic Speakers

I have been lusting after a pair of electrostatic speakers for my entire life. When I was a kid the Infinity Servo Static was the big dog in town. I heard a pair of stacked (4) QUAD electrostatic when Mark Levinson was saying they were the only speakers up to his standards.

So, It was with great excitement when I ordered a pair of QUAD ESL-2912 speakers. I set them up in my listening room and they were fantastic. Even the bass was impressive, tight and went very low. However not the bass output one would get from a big powered sub-woofer. One night I was playing internet radio and I heard thunder. I walked outside and there was no rain. The thunder was coming from the speakers! Not loud but deep and tight.

I have owned lots of speakers over the years. I sold stereo systems for years when I was younger. I worked for AR for a few years. In all those years I have never heard any speaker that came close to the QUAD ESL-2912 for clarity and transient response.

Then one day the party ended. One of the speakers made a loud single CLICK, just one and then back to normal for days. Then it got much worse. It clicked and thumped every few hours. Then it clicked and thumped every few minutes.

I sent an email to the Distributor asking what to do. No answer. I sent a few more emails, no answer. The clicking was making me nuts so I removed the back cover and disconnected the panel, there are five, that was making the noise. All was back to wonderful except the left speaker was a bit softer in volume than the right speaker.

Over the next few months I sent more emails and my tone turned angry. Finally they sent me a replacement panel. Before the replacement panel arrived more panels went bad in the first speaker and then the second speaker.

Next we shipped both speakers to the factory repair center. Six months they returned with banged up cabinets, torn speaker cloth and one speaker still not working!

So my $ 13,000.00 dream speakers have bitten me. Years ago I had KLH 9 speakers (also full range electrostatic) and never had trouble with them until they died and couldn’t be rebuilt.

Any of you have experience with QUAD electrostatics? Some people say a rebuilt pair of the old ones are way better than the new ones. I assumed that new modern manufacturing methods would have made the new speakers super reliable.

Thoughts?? Am I within my reasonable rights to sue these guys?
davidclarke

Showing 4 responses by sbank

sbank's avatar
sbank
3,391 posts
 
@davidclarke, 
Relationships between distributors and manufacturers are a funny thing and have an often dark life of their own. If all your communication has been through the distributor, perhaps talking directly with Quad would be worth a shot vs. I'd hate to shell out more for repairs given the circumstances.
If you throw in the towel, besides Sanders, no discussion of great electrostatics is complete without consideration of Sound Labs. Sound quality exceeds everything I've come across and support is excellent, even for thrifty guys like me who bought >25yr old pair. Cheers,
Spencer 
sbank's avatar
sbank
3,391 posts
 
David, where do you reside and frequent? Maybe we can find you somewhere to listen? Cheers,
Spencer
sbank's avatar
sbank
3,391 posts
 
@thehorn,

If Sound Labs are too big, then electrostatics aren't a fit. Unless someone is willing to live without low frequencies. You need plenty of surface area to get LF from electrostatics. IMHE, compromises to reduce size (usually hybrids using cone woofers) don't perform nearly as well. 

About the muraudio, how long have they been around and how many have they sold? I'd be skeptical to spend large $ on something that if parts/service are ever required, you don't know if manuf. will be around. Check out a ten or twenty year old audio magazine. Half the advertisers don't exist anymore! It's a lot tougher getting your local random audio tech to repair an electrostatic than a tube amp. Cheers,
Spencer
sbank's avatar
sbank
3,391 posts
 
@jhills IMHE, they all require plenty of power. The older SLs require more than newer models. Some of the smaller Maggies, a bit less than the larger ones, but 3.x and larger need a pretty good push to get their best out of them.
ESL63s were my first electrostatics too. They brought tears to my ears with small jazz, vocals and acoustic rock LPs, but on orchestras and prog rock I always felt like something was missing and I was listening to small speakers.
For me, SLs provide so much more dynamics and weight without sacrificing the strengths of the Quads. I'd say the Sanders do similar. My friend, a Philadelphia Orchestra pro, told me that his Maggie 20.7s don't hold a candle to my 30yr. old A3s; I agree. Cheers,
Spencer
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