ESL-EM sound only coming from top portion of electrostatic panel

Hi,

I developed a problem with one of my ESL-EM panels. The sound is only coming from the top of the panel. There's no sound coming from the part of the panel that's near the top of the base woofer. Has anyone ever had this issue before? Anyone can suggest a solution for it?

Thanks in advance,

Trey

Hola. Contact Dana Brown at Martin Logan Service Dept. [email protected] He will guide to you how to track better the problem. To me, it looks that you might need a new stat panels for it.

I contacted ML and I spoke with Chris. He suggested I do a panel swap and it does looks like a bad panel. I bought the speakers used so it's not covered by the warranty. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix the panel or is it impossible to fix without special equipment?

Try washing them. You have to take off the panel, take it to your back yard, and using a hose with mild water, cover from top to bottom and from left to right. Do not use water pressure. Just the pipe house pressure is enough. Only wash the front side. Left it aside until its dry. You can use a towel to dry the wet panel too. But leave it at the garage for a while, , one or two days, until its totally dry. Put it back, and the 90%, you will get the panel alive again. Follow the disassembly instructions that Chris sent to you. Be careful with the stat panel wires. These are very easy to break at the panel's solder joints.
http://www.martinloganowners.com/~t...n Logan Quest Stator Panel Shower Washing.pdf

so...when I took the panel outside to wash it, I noticed a dent in the bottom half of the panel. I'm wondering if indentation is blocking the membrane from move back and forth. I pulled most of the dent out and washed the panel. We'll see what happens in a couple of days. *Fingers crossed*

Dents are very used to me here in Costa Rica. Even that the carton box is protecting the whole speaker, sometimes they come with big dents. What I do, is with the aid of tie wraps, I pass through the panel holes, three or four, and with the mallet pole, I pull back. When the dent is aligned, I cut the tie wraps, and done! Happy listening!

I have no patience so I plugged the panel back in and still the same issue. Looks like I'm getting a new panel from ML.

You are getting two panels, and you have to change both. Why? Because you need to have them with the same sensitivity. You can have one good panel where you apply 1KHz at 2.83V and one can measure +3dB louder than the other, so they must be sensitivity matched.

Chris recommended getting both as well but that's something I didn't understand. Aren't ML speakers sold individually anyways? I doubt people at Best Buy are sensitivity matching speakers as they are selling them. Even if there's a difference in sensitivity couldn't Audyssey compensate for it during calibration?

Gee, I do not use Audyssey or similar. You might use it for adjusting the level that you are missing at the bad panel.

Besides, I do trust in my ears, which always are the final judges of the overall sound quality...you can do what ever you want, its your choice my friend. Happy listening!

Well it looks like I'm replacing both panels since ML is only selling them by pairs (if I wanted a single panel I would have to wait...). $1,400 shipped to CA.