Final 0.4 MkIII Electrostatics
Hi to all.I recently purchased a pair of these speakers. With the speakers came two different 12v adapters. One was a 0.5va and one was a 1.54va.
Upon listening i found that the 0.5 was not powering the panel ( I did alternate supply to each speaker to confirm it was supply problem and not speaker)
My first port of call was to contact Final where i was informed the 0.5va - 6watts according to Mr Ohms - is enough to power the speakers and that as it wasn't, the problem must be the internal transformer. Now... as the 1.54va seemed to power the panel I thought until I get time to get the speakers looked at and the internal boards tested I would buy another 1.54va supply just so as i could get a good idea of what the speakers sound like. Not able to find a 1.54va I settled for two 2va adapters so at least the supply was matched.
This itself presented another problem as for some reason I cannot seem to hear either panel now!! When i sit back and play some tunes that I'm familiar with everything sounds as it should. The soundstage is huge, the trebles are there and it does sound very good but upon standing in front of the panel I'm not hearing anything!! Am I missing something?
Note: I am using a modded Cyrus 2 + PSX
Planar speakers are a funny lot - and listening at very close range won't be the same as listening from the normal position, especially if you are off-axis. If everything sounds good from the listening position, I don't think there is anything amiss.
Welcome. I'm on a couple audio forums and you almost never see discussion of these. I suspect they are very rare? Hope you get them going.
They went out of business due to qc issues and left people without repair support. They are back now in a newly formed company with new products. I had a very poor experience with the new US distributor and the company owner. I was primed to buy a new set of their speakers, was promised "at least a 15% discount" by picking up the speakers at AXPONA. As instructed by the US distributor to contact the owner via email with my questions about the US distributor's claims that "new and improved models were being released at AXPONA". I sent maybe 2 or 3 emails asking technical questions. He started telling people that I was stalking him! I gave up on getting any info out of them and thought everything was good to go when about 3 weeks before AXPONA, which I had already purchased non-refundable tickets and booked a hotel, I get a message from the US distributor asking me for payment up front- the promised discount was not "at least 15%", but rather 10%. Additionally, he insisted that I pay him $500 or so in sales tax. I had contacted my state's revenue department and they told be quite clearly that he was not registered in my state to collect sales tax and since it was an out of state purchase, I was responsible to report the purchase and pay the sales tax directly to my state office. I informed him of this, provided links to online revenue site info, etc. He still claimed I had to pay him. Given all these issues there was a major lack of trust and disappointment with Final's business practices. What, I wondered, would happen if these speakers needed repair or service? Would they really pay to have them shipped back and forth to the Netherlands? What if they went bankrupt again? Too sketchy for me....I picked up a refurbed pair of Acoustat 6600's for $750 and saved myself about $6000 and likely a lot of time and headaches. Buyer beware.
