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In Reply to: RE: Heard them at CES posted by unclestu on June 19, 2015 at 15:56:30
thanks
Mark
Follow Ups:
I worked for a dealer who carried Quad as well as Martin Logan. None of theose brands lasted longer than 5 years.
In the case of Quad, even though they have that mylar dust cover,eventually sale air and traffic dusty ( very oily) would leach in and essentially short out the high voltages.
In the case of Martin logan The horizontal strips would collect dust and the dust being slightly abrasive would cut into the conductive coating on the diaphraghm. Also in earlier models ( I have not tried the latest) the horizontal foam strips would slowly deteriorate and being under tension would c=alter the speqker parameters.
The only panels which never seemed problematic were the Acoustat. They used regular insulated wire strung up on what looked to be flourescent light grills. They offered a lifetime guarantee and they never seemd to fail, but then they did not quite have the pristine quality of sound like the other brands. Acoustat, unfortunately, did not last very long. IIIRC, Fosgate handles their service.
The ML's I have heard never really did anything for me...I could always "hear" the woofer...
The Quads I have not spent much time with either...they are in my opinion, more transparent than Maggies, but lacked weight...
Now the big SL's, they do most everything extremely well...Maggies are just much more in my price range and are great bang for the buck speakers...
I know there is a whole garden industry in rebuilding Quads...I thought it was more transformer issues than panel issues, but I really do not know...
Thank you for the reply...I just do not know allot about Stats in general...
thanks
Mark
Transformers are never the issue with Quads. I have never seen an audio transformer fail. A couple power transformers over the decades but these were either 40-50 year old original Quads or the newer ones built in China. Still very rare.
UncleStu lives in Hawaii. Humidity is what kills them in this environment. Hawaii is a temperate climate overall and some do not want to use any kind of AC to keep humidity levels under control.
For most people this is not an issue. Here in the midwest it is nearly 70% humidity outside, not good for the electrostats, but it is also 95 degrees. You bet the AC is running hard! This keeps humidity levels well under 50%.
Don't think its only humidity.
On the Quad front I have personally owned the original 57's. but have worked with the Crosby mods, the Radio People mods, the Wayne Piquet rebuilds, and there's a local guy who loves quads so much he invested in a roll of the coated miylar diaphragm material to tootally rebuild the panels.
Both the local guy and Wayne would strip the panels down to the bare wood (sanding off the black paint on older models). I know the local guy has duplicated the original weighted tensioning/stretching jig used by original Quad.
I warn customers that 'stats in Hawaii make a great SECOND pair of speakers. One of my customers was so enamored of the 57 sound that he purchased a second pair ( Wayne's) after Wayne assured him that his pair had sat in his Florida Garage for a decade with no issues. The Piquest pair lasted only two months before arcing in one panel, then the other, He no longer warranty's the speakers in "tropical" environments.
As such, 'stats here create a huge love /hate relationship with their owners. When working, they simply love the sound, but since they always seem to fail, frustration sets in, maybe not the first time, but for later failures which seem to occur with regularity.
Being on a small land mass with a hell of a lot of cars, I suspect automotive exhaust fumes. Dust accumulation here have a sticky oily feel on windows and blinds no matter where you go. The oily blow by is insidous, I believe now they cause arcng even on tube gear so repairs which come in automatically get an alcohol wash, and believe me that greasy dust is difficult to remove.
I do notice greater numbers of failures for customers living downwind of , say, the freeways...
Of course YMMV and FWIW
I appreciate the comments.
I have plenty of clients in Hawaii and other tropical islands. No problems to speak of but the clients do pay attention to humidity levels.
While I don't discount the other environmental issues you mention, the VT150SE I bought from you last year demonstrates the point nicely, I do believe humidity is still the largest issue when dealing with electrostats. No stat likes humidity some will tolerate it better than others.
Even with all these issues panels/speakers should still last much longer than a few months if working properly. I would say your original comment of about 5 years is about right if one does not watch humidity and other environmental issues in their particular situation.
Keep them dry, keep them clean and they should go decades no matter where they are located.
That VT-150 was in a hom that ran AC 24/7 then stored in an WWII underground bunker. The bunker was medium/high humidity but constant temperature.
In Hawaii, we have certain peculiar issues which occur, usually before anyone else notices it. I notified Mike Sanders that his nickel plated chassis developed large amounts of corrosion in a few years. He was flabbergasted as even his Florida customers never reported anything wrong.
I believe the thermal cycling coupled wth the humidity enables the moisture to penetrate the nickel and auses the base steel to corrode, not neessarily rusting through, but leaving unslightly blemishes.
I personally believe it is a combination of traffic dust and humidity and salt tinged air. I have seen in ocean front homes cases where after a decade the resistor leads have corroded to the point where I have to change out all the resistors on a board. Good thing tube gear does not use as many devices.
The oily traffic dust tends to accumulate dust and they, in turn, absorb moisture. In addition the slightly elevated ambient temperatures coupled with the heat of the components tends to "cook" any excesss rosin, carbonizing it and creating a pathway conducive to arcing. In the case of "stats, it doesn't take much to create arcing in the panels ( I notice that ML now advises vigrously vacuuming the panels).
Of course the environmental hazards will vary depending on your neighborhood.
Ours is fairly unique and I have learned through the school of hardknocks.
Incidentally Sound Labs with their technique of using smaller modules last longer, but not that much so.
YMMV and FWIW
Thanks for the comments and history on the VT150.
Overall the amps looked great. They actually arrived in the evening so things were dark. The next day I gave them a closer examination and my heart just sank. The corrosion on all the PCB traces was just incredible. My initial reaction was just set them at the curb and take your lose! There is no way these are ever going to work again given the level of damage to the PCB traces.
I also knew there was a way to get them working again but the solution will be drastic. Remove the boards and all the components. Carefully remove the corrosion on every trace, paste flux the board, reflow with solder, clean. About (8) cycles of this. Now the traces look perfect again time to re-populate the boards. I bought new components, sockets from the factory.
While they are apart thoroughly clean the chassis, replace all the corroded hardware, replace the main B+ caps, etc., reinstall the boards, dress all the wiring harnesses. Quite the job probably 80 hours in the pair.
I had never seen damage quite like this. Just the small amount of dust, etc., that had collected on the boards mixed with the Hawaiian environment, salt-water, etc., caused everything to corrode.
One hell of a project but I learned a lot.
Just imagine I see that on a everyday basis and on far newer devices. Even those using conformal coatings suffer from bleeding in at the solder pads which insidiously creep and corrode.
With certain brands I suffer even more issues than others. AR is one such brand, The Old Golden Tube stuff used a circuit board laid out utilizing a lot of computer techniques. They crapped out left and igh and my intial order of 6 units had only a 100% failure rate. Still have three units stashed awayy: transformers are good but boards with their ground planes and such are horrible.
Another issue I notice is that B- traces running adjacent to B+ or even ground traces cause an electrolytic issue for some reason. Its a constant battle over here. In fact on the first generation Rhue amps I took a glance at the innards and pointed out to the designer the problem and the ( the cure). Next year at CES he approached me and thanked me because the exact issue came up on certain models sold in certain areas.
And talk about batteries in remotes !!!!
I now highly recommend use of Cortex products and periodic cleaning. This is especially true if you have indoor pets like cats or dogs.....
Cortex once had Don Moses (of Wadia fame) as a resaercher and sales manager. calling the off shoot (O2 blocker), you could reach him personally, so I had the opportunity to speak to him one on one. His point in working with Cortec was that the increasingly tiny traces needed preservation in order to insure good sound. My experiences of core mirrored his comments.
Once an 02 dealer, I had a surprising customer: the USMC . A corporal called me up requesting audiophile contact cleaners because their computer mother boards had to be wiped down and cleaned every morning they were in use. In the field, the Colonel was furious, because you can't fight a war that way. They ordered some cleaner and when I explained about the 02 blocker, they called back and ordered 100 of the one inch foam squares. Colonel was so happy he came back and ordered 500 of them but I explained that this product was originally developed for the military so they had to have it somewhere in their supply system. 500 was overkill, but the Colonel did not want to ever have clean mother boards edge cards ever.
as always YMMV and FWIW
My apologies about those amps, BTW. The transformers were good, though. And you did exactly what I had to do so often:clean the traces paint them over with liquid flux and solder them over. Very tedious and painstaking. On some new components with a histor of such failures I solder over when new as the thicker layer of tin in the solder seems to resist corrosion better.
People wonder why I go through 3 to 4 ounds of solder in less than a year.....
No problem with the amps. As the old saying goes you get what you pay for!! I figured they would need some attention but I never imagined they would require that level of work.
Like many things in life if I had known up front what I know now I would have passed. But I always wanted a pair of these amps. In the end everything worked out fine.
Do you have a link for the Cortex?
Here you go; the vci stands for vapor corrosion inhibitor. In the beginning, they used oil of cloves (they still do but found a way to deodorize the chemical) so components used to smell like a Christmas ham...
They make a large variety of products including heavy duty industrial apps. Look up the VCI products when you go on their website.
They will inhibit but not completely stop corrosion. I often will tear small pieces of the foam and stick it in RCA ends and such wear open copper ends are involved. They do seem to work ( I have about a decade of experience with them so far).
.
Acoustats have better sonics than ML, Quads failed due to poor prep of their stators at assembly.
modified ones today play like no tomorrow, no issues ..
'Quads failed due to poor prep of their stators at assembly.'
And you know this how?
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