Faulty Naim Uniti Nova Blew Up my Kanta Nº 2 speaker, help on what to do next

From the Apple site…
Under consumer laws in the UK, consumers are entitled to a free of charge repair and (depending on the circumstances) may be entitled to a replacement, discount or refund by the seller, of defective goods or goods which do not conform with the contract of sale. For goods purchased in England or Wales, these rights expire six years from delivery of the goods and for goods purchased in Scotland, these rights expire five years from delivery of the goods.

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I wonder how this same issue would be resolved with another speaker manufacturer other than one associated with Naim. Or even a DIY speaker. The OP is probably lucky his speakers were focal.

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Wow, makes me think I should keep my gear powered off when not in the room. Despite Naim’s recommendation. Can’t afford to replace my speakers!

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I’ll say that you have bad luck, because it is rare for that to happen.

I think not just rare, but extremely so - though it would be interesting to see some stats?

Hello guys, so, i have got some updates.
Naim ended up sending the Kanta to the Portuguese distributor since that was the only way to bypass the customs issue. The speaker is already there since the 9th of November, but only yesterday i was contacted by the distributor to arrange delivery to my house. I actually only knew that yesterday, after i asked naim for updates and they told me the speaker was already here since the 9th’, and cc’ed the distributor to arrange delivery with me.

Hopefully, if everything goes well, i hope to have the repaired speaker in here till the end of the week.

However, there is still one issue that i need to resolve and that i haven’t spoken about, because at that time it made no difference.

When i first posted the thread i thought my other Kanta hadn’t been affected, however, when i got the nova back, and ended up testing the speaker properly, i realized that middle driver had been affected and wasn’t working properly, even though it didn’t burn like the ones in the other speaker. So when i realized that we were about 3 months in the repair proccess of the other Kanta, and, as i didn’t want it to take that much time (yeah at the time i was naive and thought the issue would be solved really quickly) i asked naim if there was another option that didn’t involve sending the speaker to the UK, even if that meant to reinstall the driver myself, if that was easy to do. So that was the agreement we made, so in this package, besides the Kanta, there is also a driver, that i will be installing in the other kanta. I got a manual to do that, and as far as i can tell, it’s pretty straightforward, the only difficult thing, will probably be removing the circle bezel, that allows access for the driver to be removed.

Of course i would prefer if i didn’t have to do it myself, but at the time i didn’t knew this proccess would take + than 7 months, and i just wanted to be over with, and if i sent the other speaker back as well, it would delay this process by a lot. So yeah, still one more thing to do when i finally get the other Kanta in my home!
Hopefully everything goes well, like i said, even though this process is taking a long time, and a lot of stress management, i am excited this is finally shaping up to be resolved, so i can finally enjoy my system once again.

I’ll let you know how it goes when i get the speaker back, and when i install the driver.

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Hi @FadiNg, that’s a helluva journey you’ve been on. I really hope everything comes right for you in the very near future.

Roger

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The likelihood of transistor failing is very very slim at this age, unless they are driven to the maximum of the spec. Reaching its maximum current capability in the amplifier circuit. I have an experience of small signal transistor failing due to its operation from very high base current but it usually takes some time.

I’m still shocked there isn’t some kind of protection to prevent this kind of situation when an electronics failure occurs. To have such a catastrophic failure doing such damage is super concerning to me.

There’s not a lot you can do. Especially not so without reducing SQ.

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I would prefer a little less sound and have the comfort of not having my sopra speakers turn into flames if something goes wrong, or even a thing like this cause a fire in the home, not a good thought.

Sure this could have been an isolated situation, but is not one I would like to experience personally.

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I thought that Naim did a first class job here, everything considered. The fact that they took full responsibility very early on is exemplary and typical of a company that stands behind their products. Replacement parts accessibility is one of the most common issues these days and I very much doubt that Naim had this service issue on the back-burner, only ever giving it attention when the OP emailed them. It would be nice to receive an email every week from customer service, but this is somewhat impractical, especially when there is nothing new to report.
The state of OEM manufacturing has many, very new process problems to contend with over the last few years, so really, I feel strongly that Naim has most likely been doing everything they could to correct this difficult customer issue.
I know that it is annoying to have to use one’s secondary speakers (we all have them) for 8 months when we love the sound of our main ones, and I do sympathise with the OP on that, but these really are 1st world problems and should be dealt with as such.

Just a thought …

A couple of 1M Ohm 100w resistors with suitable heatsinks in series should do the trick. :wink:

I’m not aware of anybody that personally enjoys misfortune although there may be some people that do.:thinking:

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Happily it was not your speakers that burn…

Thank you. I think.

Like most Japanese amps, they have DC output protection so the relay will cut out to protect speaker. There is one time, I had my naim pre connected to my Victor M-L10 poweramp before and I accidentally switched off the naim first, and the output dc relay tripped, into protection and back on after 5 seconds. Naim believed that the protection and relay will decrease the SQ of the amp. So nothing can be done.

Since my victor poweramp is a fully direct coupled design, they had to put in protection to avoid situations where the pre start to output DC and fry the speakers.

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Oh yes I remember this, I had a Technics amp that would pass through very low frequency signals. A warp in a record could been seen as the diaphragm of my speaker bass drivers moving slowly (approx. 0.5Hz?) in sympathy!

It had a sub sonic filter which could remove this!

Almost all high end amps have protection against DC offset. I don’t know why Naim foolishly doesn’t do this. Sound quality is not a valid reason. Everybody else figured out how to do it. There’s no way I would hook up my Sopras to one.

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Hello guys, so unfortunately, i still do not have the Kanta with me. Even though the speaker is in the Portuguese distributor since the 9th of November, they didn’t send it last week stating the were delays with the insurance quote, and that the the speaker was only in condition to be sent last friday, and since in that case the Kanta would have to be on a warehouse over the weekend, it was safer if it was sent on monday (yesterday) so it would be here the next day (today).
So i was assured this would be the case and i would have the speaker today.

However, this wasn’t the case, as i didn’t receive the speaker, nor did i get any tracking number. I’ve emailed them but still didn’t get any explanation. Comically enough, the speaker is taking a lot more to be sent over a 60 Km’s distance in the same country, then from the UK to Portugal. Surreal stuff.

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Best of luck - and be glad it’s not coming to Madeira :grinning: