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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

Showing 1 response by anupmc

anupmc
21 posts
 
I've had the same thing happen with my Kharma too, but I believe there are a couple of mitigating factors...

1) Kharma midrange drivers are virtually connected directly to the Amp (whereas the bass and tweeter drivers are linearly crossed-over). This makes the fragile ceramic cone on the midrange driver relatively exposed! Conversely though, its the very reason why the Kharma midrange sounds so fantastically neutral and natural.

2) The Kharma drivers need plenty of run-in before playing at high SPLs. I'm guessing that pair of Exquisite Reference units weren't thoroughly run-in. With high SPL and a dynamic track, I'm not surprised the cone broke up, probably like a crushed egg-shell :)
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