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Vandersteen Service?

Distortions

Distortions

Active Member
Hi all,

I have a pair of Vandersteen 3A Signatures. Lately, I have noticed that the right speaker makes an airy squeeking sound or sounds like it is scraping against something when I turn up the volume and play the opening heartbeat from 'Dark Side of the Moon.' This occurs about 23 seconds into the music on both the SACD and CD layers of my SACD.

Do you think one of the drivers is shot or will it just need to be repaired? Will I need to send both speakers back to the Vandersteen factory in case one of the drivers needs to be replaced and so the drivers in both speakers will match?

I noticed that on Vandersteen's Service Return Instruction sheet that Vandersteen will not ship the 3 Series speakers back to its customers via UPS or FedEx. Instead, it says that they will be delivered by truck. I am worried that this repair might cost a fortune. There are no Vandersteen dealers in New York State. I live in upstate New York, and the nearest dealer would be 4-5 hours away in New Jersey, so I cannot handle this through a dealer. Also, it has been more than five years since I purchased the speakers, so my warranty is up.

Has anyone else ever sent anything back to Vandersteen for servicing? If so, do you know what I can expect?

Thank you for your help.
 
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From what I gather, Richard Vandersteen is a very friendly supportive guy - have you tried calling customer service to see what he has to say?

FOR SERVICE QUESTIONS, PRICES OR PROCEDURES, CALL 559-582-0324 AND PRESS 4

http://www.vandersteen.com/
 
You may be able to fix it yourself. Most likely the surround on your woofer came unglued. To get to it take the stand off and set the speaker up side down on the carpet. Remove the screws and the end cap will come off. Take out all those staples and roll the sock up like a womens stocking. Push lightly on the woofer and see if the surround became unglued. If it is take it out and reglue it.

It also could be the rear firing radiator. Sometimes you can take them out and rotate them 180 degrees on their mounting holes and gravity will take care of the problem.

If you call Richard and you don't want to do it yourself he will most likely encourage you to remove the faulty driver/s and send them to him saving you a bundle on shipping costs.
Jim
 
By the way you may be able to look at the drivers using a very bright flash light with out taking the socks up.
Jim
 
To find out exactly which speaker, either the low freq or the highs and mid, just hook up one pair of the speaker terminal at a time, start with the bass/low only and listen for that scraping sound, if you don't hear it switch the speaker wire to the high and mid only and listen. By this, you should be able to tell which speaker is bad one.
 
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