Electrostatic Speakers


I have been lusting after a pair of electrostatic speakers for my entire life. When I was a kid the Infinity Servo Static was the big dog in town. I heard a pair of stacked (4) QUAD electrostatic when Mark Levinson was saying they were the only speakers up to his standards.

So, It was with great excitement when I ordered a pair of QUAD ESL-2912 speakers. I set them up in my listening room and they were fantastic. Even the bass was impressive, tight and went very low. However not the bass output one would get from a big powered sub-woofer. One night I was playing internet radio and I heard thunder. I walked outside and there was no rain. The thunder was coming from the speakers! Not loud but deep and tight.

I have owned lots of speakers over the years. I sold stereo systems for years when I was younger. I worked for AR for a few years. In all those years I have never heard any speaker that came close to the QUAD ESL-2912 for clarity and transient response.

Then one day the party ended. One of the speakers made a loud single CLICK, just one and then back to normal for days. Then it got much worse. It clicked and thumped every few hours. Then it clicked and thumped every few minutes.

I sent an email to the Distributor asking what to do. No answer. I sent a few more emails, no answer. The clicking was making me nuts so I removed the back cover and disconnected the panel, there are five, that was making the noise. All was back to wonderful except the left speaker was a bit softer in volume than the right speaker.

Over the next few months I sent more emails and my tone turned angry. Finally they sent me a replacement panel. Before the replacement panel arrived more panels went bad in the first speaker and then the second speaker.

Next we shipped both speakers to the factory repair center. Six months they returned with banged up cabinets, torn speaker cloth and one speaker still not working!

So my $ 13,000.00 dream speakers have bitten me. Years ago I had KLH 9 speakers (also full range electrostatic) and never had trouble with them until they died and couldn’t be rebuilt.

Any of you have experience with QUAD electrostatics? Some people say a rebuilt pair of the old ones are way better than the new ones. I assumed that new modern manufacturing methods would have made the new speakers super reliable.

Thoughts?? Am I within my reasonable rights to sue these guys?
davidclarke
I can whole-heartedly recommend Martin Logans.  I've owned ReQuest, Arius i, Prodigy, and CLX.  The early ReQuest, required occasional vacuuming of dust to keep quiet-squealing at bay and good HF extension. The Prodigy and CLX were and have been flawless and trouble free. The Prodigy from 2000 through 2010 and the CLX from 2010 on. (estimates). The Prodigy and CLX both benefit from a powered down, vacuuming every few months to maximize HF extension.
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Easy 3 part jazz  bands sound very good   solo female all singers sound very good    rock for the serious man   walk away
   or make sure you have 2 subs     let's make sure you tell it like it is   Eddie
The best stats on the planet are made by Roger Sanders      don't mix up
roger west with sanders 
I own a pair of 2805's
A knowledgeable friend told me they would last six years .. then poof!. Sadly almost six years to the month it happened. That notorious "clicking" that told me a Panel needed replacement.
I decided I would purchase Harbeth 7 ES3 as a temporary replacement until my Quads get repaired. I hung on and on and never did fix up the Quads. 
The Harbeths are so good and seem to fit into my set up and room arrangement. They are so musical and I am enjoying them much more than the Quads.
Alas I will not repair the Quads.   Not worth the hassle.