Aeon I - Showering/Cleaning/Improving Sound

So I managed to get swindled in to buying a damaged pair of Aeon I's over the weekend.


Long story short, I paid $1000 for a pair of Aeon I's that had ESL panels that were only putting out about 10% and 40% volume respectively. The guy must have been screwing with leveling or something because they sounded decent in the audition but terrible when I got them home.

I went and showered and dried both panels twice. Showered once, waited 24 hours and tried them. One was still bad, so I showered them again and waited 24 hours again... One was still bad and the other wasn't exactly great. Maybe I should have let them dry for longer but I decided to try the soap trick.

I mixed dish soap 50/50 with water and put it in an eye dropper bottle. Ran that down the sandwich side of the ESLs on both sides for each and WOW what a difference it made.

It brought the panels back to life for about 5 seconds before the water must have lowered the conductivity back to where it was before I had put the mixture in. Honestly I am not too sure what I did. I had the speakers on their sides with the ESL panels physically removed but connected and running with music playing at THX reference levels.

I went and physically wiggled the panels back and forth and the sound would come and go and then I got frustrated and started to physically pry them apart at the end where the wires were soldered to the front and back and middle mylar section with the traces.

I shocked myself a good number of times but it seemed if I held the panels apart where the wires were soldered in, they would play at normal levels, so long as they were being pulled apart in that area. As soon as I would take my flat head screwdriver out, the music would die down back to low levels.

Finally, I had the bright idea of taking a hair dryer and running it into the section where the wires were soldered. After about ten seconds of this at full heat, the sound magically came back to stay.

God these speakers sound beautiful when the ESL panels are working! Somehow with all that manhandling, blood, sweat, tears, and electrocution, I got them to work again and after running a white noise test, they are actually playing within 1dB of each other.

They've held like this for 24 hours now so I hope that next week maybe they'll keep playing beautifully like this. Everything sounds so detailed and real it's unbelievable. I know there's room for improvement but they feel like they're worth the $1000 I paid for now at least. :rocker:

Questions I had for you guys...

-Has anyone else had a problem similar to this with the same model?
-Do you think there is any room left for improving SPL levels with the ESLs still?
-Should I try and have the panels replaced or repaneled and how much should I expect to pay?

Thank goodness we're all nice guys on this forum and we don't seek some kind of retribution when some one rips us off... :devil:

Last night I sat my girlfriend down and had her listen to some music from these speakers. She was able to notice that the right one still wasn't making the same volume as the left, even though it was pumped up 1dB...

So I decided to tear it down again.

I played around with the soap water again, working it in to the edges of the panel. Eventually the sound died out (I guess it must have become conductive between the layers again.

I dried everything out with the hair dryer and got some of the sound back, but not even to the level it was before. Frustrated, I began to pry the corner with the wires attached to it apart again and noticed that the wire connected to the mylar was somewhat loose (I wasn't about to yank it out). I decided to try a McGyver technique again and got some aluminum foil and folded it up into a strip approximating the width of the conductive layer on the side.

I told my girlfriend I was probably going to shock the s*** out of myself doing what I was about to do, and sure enough as I laid the aluminum foil down onto the trace through the side of the panel, I got zapped pretty good, but the moment that aluminum came into contact with the metal strip and the wire, the sound came back beautifully.

Now the right ESL has gained back the fidelity and the volume it was lacking. I ran a white noise test again and it was within half a dB of the left, so I'm pretty satisfied. The levels held up all last night. Now to see if they can do that for a week...

You should call Russ at justrealmusic in Ohio and describe your problem. He might suggest sending them to him for a 'refurb.' If you think the seller ripped you off, DO NOT call ML to ask their price on replacement ESL panels...!

Tosh said:

You should call Russ at justrealmusic in Ohio and describe your problem. He might suggest sending them to him for a 'refurb.' If you think the seller ripped you off, DO NOT call ML to ask their price on replacement ESL panels...!

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I wouldn't tell ML tech support that I got ripped off on a craigslist deal of course. Why would ML be bad to call? I know their prices are outrageous... are they still outrageous even with their newer product lines?

I actually called both Russ Knotts and Martin Logan separately about 6 months ago about possibly refurbishing or repaneling my CLSIIa's. Martin Logan quoted me something retarded like $2400 and told me I would ship my stuff in, then they'd throw it away, and then they would ship me brand new panels for that price. I'm not sure what they were smoking but I got the feeling that this was not quality customer care.

I then emailed Russ after independently searching the web for a while and finding out that he's literally the only human being out there who fixes these things as a business. Very polite guy, he called back about a week after I sent the email and offered to refurbish both for $500 plus shipping. The thought of sending my Logans off at the time seemed sickening and he had told me that these speakers would probably never play as loud as I wanted them to, so it was my choice.

Fast forward 6 months and I'm thinking of doing this all over again LOL.

I've actually got them working real good for right now though. After playing around with the aluminum foil, they've held to within 0.5dB of eachother with a blind white noise test and just the ESL panels alone running.

I might give it a few months and contact Russ (or even Martin Logan if maybe their newer, smaller ESLs are more cost affordable to replace)

Anyone have experience with either of the two on an Aeon sized panel?