Posted by Kevin on March 30, 2003 at 07:48:33:
In Reply to: Re: Comments posted by Roy on March 29, 2003 at 17:38:57:
I have been following this thread with interest and think it appropriate to add my comments at this time. As a rule I prefer to communicate any problems directly to Roger rather than in this public forum, but given that this discussion is already well under way I will make an exception this time.
I have owned my A-3's since February 1999, and they too have the stator tubes glued to the notches in the cross braces. I experienced my first breakdown that September, with the location of the breakdown being at one of the cross braces. The factory support was terrific and in less than two weeks I was back on the air. But three weeks later the same core experienced another breakdown, this time at the bottom cross brace. Once again the factory responded by giving my core top priority and I was soon back to normal.
In September of 2000 when my other panel had a breakdown I was devastated, but I took comfort in the fact that the factory would soon correct the problem. In fact, rather than repair my core, Roger instructed the factory to send me a brand new core to minimize my wait.
At this time I decided to change from the off-white linen grill cloth to the black spandex, and asked that enough material be included with my new core to allow me to rework my other core myself. But when I removed the linen on my "undamaged" speaker I was horrified to see a big burn hole in the mylar, once again at the junction of a cross brace. Apparently this breakdown made such a large hole that no further arcing was possible so I was completely unaware it had happened until I removed the grill cloth.
Throughout my ordeal Roger was at a loss to explain why I was having so many breakdowns, but in retrospect, given that at least three of my four breakdowns occurred at a cross brace, Roy's theory that the breakdowns result from too much stress at the glue joint seems plausible to me.
Regarding the heat-treatment of the mylar and given the excellent factory support I have always received, I was troubled by the following statement Roger made to Roy:
"The risk taken by a customer doing the procedure is not our responsibility. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the break downs in the insulation and the resulting holes in the membrane are due to the heat treatment that you gave the panels. If we had done the work then by all means we would take responsibility for it."
This all hit home when this Friday night I found that I could not play the recently-released SACD of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" because of severe buzzing in one panel during deep bass notes. When I investigated I discovered several sections where the mylar was wrinkled. I was planning to follow Roger's Membrane Heat-Treating Instructions that Roy passed on to SLOG (with Roger's permission), but now I am afraid that if I heat-treat my core any subsequent breakdowns would not be covered under the warranty. It would seem my only viable option will be to return the panel to the factory.
Despite all these problems I, like Roy, am totally committed to Sound Lab speakers. I have never heard another speaker that comes close to the realism they convey, and I hope this post doesn't discourage anyone from buying these wonderful speakers. Indeed the underlying message here is just how great these speakers are since, in spite of our problems, both Roy and I are sticking with Sound Lab.