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Kharma ceramic blow up

Has this happened to anyone?

I went to listen to the Kharma Exquisite Reference today paired with Soulution preamp, Soulution monoblocks, and the dCS Scarletti stack. I really enjoyed it until I put in Bela Fleck's "Flight of the Cosmic Hippo" track #4 which is very bass punchy/heavy.

The ceramic midrange proceeded to blow up BOOM and shatter! Is this common with ceramic midranges? I mean the whole driver literally blew up and shattered into pieces.

Usually a speaker blows up because of amplified distortion which causes the speaker piston movement to become non linear, but I highly doubt the Soulutions or dCS somehow caused this.

Nothing against Kharma, as maybe this was a one off thing. I did really like this setup though. The music was beautiful until it happened. I've been listening to setups from Rockport Altairs, Wilson Maxx3's, TAD Reference 1, and now today the Kharmas.

Should I be wary of about this? I don't want to spend so much money and have problems like this. Do you think this was just a one-off? Again I thoroughly enjoyed the Kharma's until then (but still needed to listen longer to get a better sense of the speakers).

Cheers.
changster

Showing 2 responses by changster

changster OP
40 posts
 
Jtinn, Buff - The Soulution preamp was set at "50" if I remember. I highly highly doubt this was over 115db. Maybe 100db, I'm not sure. Jtinn, what do you mean by the amp pushing DC current to the speakers?

Mtdking - were they the ceramic midranges that blew up on you? Was it like what happened to me, where the ceramic cone shattered into pieces?
changster OP
40 posts
 
Wow I feel like I opened up a can of worms here.

I don't like inferring things, but is this a property of most ceramic drivers, or is it the enginnering behind the speaker? I guess I can't rule out upstream either like Jtinn said.

I went to another shop that used to sell Kharmas and he said they used to have the same problems of the ceramic driver shattering.

At this type of price range I would expect so much more. They should be indestructable.
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