A sorry saga of Quad ESL57 refurbishment: I live in the UK
and in December 2017 I sent Wayne
Picquet of Quads Unlimited in Florida a full set of ESL57 panels (2 treble, 4
bass) to restore - and paid him upfront c. $2000 via PayPal. The panels I sent
him were OK - no damage - but I wanted the best. He must have turned them
around in his workshop in less than two days. When I received them back, their
outward appearance was superb. All the attention to small detail he was famous
for. Cosmetically there were in a different league to one of the restorers I
have used here in the UK.
Wired them in, they sounded good too, except for one bass panel making noises
(tearing/cracking sounds) when asked to deal with moderate amounts of low bass.
During the next few months, two more of the bass panels developed the same
fault. Please rest assured, I am no headbanger!
I sent him a video which demonstrated the problem and his reply was that he
couldn't successfully play the video because he "didn't do PC stuff".
Alarm bells should have rung at that point, but I gave him the benefit of the
doubt. There is something disarming about Wayne.
Dozens of emails were exchanged during this time, with Wayne making suggestions
- and me trying them out.
All to no avail.
There were also developing issues with the treble panels: the front dustcovers
attaching themselves to parts of the front stators. Re tensioning them made no
difference.
In August 2018 I then made - looking back - a dumb decision. I sent all 6
panels back to him for repair under warranty. It was dumb because this was 8
months after I had received them from him in the first place, and PayPal buyer
protection ceases after 6 months.
There was no acknowledgement that he had received them back. After a month or
so, I emailed him, he acknowledged receipt, and promised a replacement set of
world-beating restorations within two to three weeks. He blows his own trumpet
hard, and then some. It may have been justified once, but not anymore. This
promise was repeated every time I emailed him for a progress report. Which was
about once a month. Half the time, my emails were ignored. By the end of 2018,
if I got any kind of reply/update at all, it would usually cite health issues,
cash flow problems and issues with Gary Jacobson as a cause for the delay.
At the start of 2019, I offered to pay for the panels' carriage back here to
the UK, hoping this would kick start the non-progress of the repair work. It
didn't. And since June the only emails and texts I have received from Quads
Unlimited have been from his brother Richard - about Wayne needing downtime. I
now believe those emails were sent by Wayne himself.
Re Gary Jacobson (http://www.quadesl.org/), I emailed him to point out that his
website's ringing endorsement of Wayne Picquet's work - the sole reason I went
to Quads Unlimited in the first place - needed an update of some kind. Never
got a reply.
And, as of December 2019, I am still without the panels. In other words, 2
years have passed, I am over $2000 poorer, and with nothing to show for it, not
even my original panels (the ones I sent Wayne Picquet to restore in the first
place). If there is any progress - any good news - I will let you know.
