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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
rtn1
535 posts
 
The Kharma Exquisite Reference is an excellent speaker. It can truly portray that sense of scale. Unfortunately, Kharma is too much money in the US, which I think is a by-product of currency and importation costs.

Aren't all ceramic drivers made by Accuton/Thiel? Who else makes them?

I think the key to a speaker with a ceramic driver is to have a woofer which properly balances the midrange and tweeter.
argyro
438 posts
 
Yup, listen to this great kharma story:

In August 2004 I bought the Kharma 3.2! In September 2004 one of the ceramic drivers blew up due to excessive power.

Kharma charged me 500E for a new one. BUT the new driver they sent me was slightly bigger than the previous one!!!!!!!!Resulting in the driver being around 3mm out of the cabinet!!!!

I send an email to kharma and responded that "Accuton changed the ceramic driver size without informing us"!!!!

Can you believe this? And why didnt they tell me from the beginining then?

So they proposed I pay for one more driver so I have a matched pair!!!!!

It is the worse service I have had from any company ever!!!

A friend of mine also blew, both of the drivers in his kharma 3.2.

* For anyone doubting the above I have kept all the emails with kharma*
gregm
3,405 posts
 
Jtinn:
It is always upstream. The driver does not just fail.
Tsk, tsk. Of course a driver doesn't commit suicide:)!
That, exactly that, was the question: i.e. in other words "what upstream element do you think caused the damage".

In this case, probably the power. Most Theil & partner drivers are spec'd up to 100W max power...
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.
jdoris
972 posts
 
"At this type of price range I would expect so much more."

At any price range, perhaps a tendency for drivers to explode (!) should instill caution in the heart of the buyer ;)

John
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