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I am revisiting an old topic. I am back in the sound lab camp. I really do not understand how people can listen to cone speakers. I have just picked up the px A3s and ordered the U2 pxes . I must say WOW!!!!! The old sound labs beat everything i have ever heard but had issues that were annoying . Now they are simply the best speakers on earth. 
128x128kirk930
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bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,397 posts
 
Don't the Soundlabs ask a great deal of the amp hooked up to them? I've heard them sounding pretty good (in ESL terms, which means great in general speaker terms), but also with what sounded like amp clipping. And that was at CES, where you would think every measure was taken to show them at their best. Gordon Holt sure loved the A-3's, I think it was, but noted that they should be used with only the best (and biggest, meaning power) amps available. At that time, for him that meant the big Threshold. 
martykl
3,578 posts
 
I agree 50%!

The best 'stats (Soundlab, IMO) are better than dynamic speakers in so many important ways, but.....

Fire up a pair of MBL 101s and you get the other side of the story.  Incredibly dynamic omnis that sound 180 degrees (pardon the pun) different from Soundlabs.  Not as totally neutral or as detailed as the Soundlabs, but that incredible 3D sound field and massive dynamic impact!  Which is better?  Given enough variety in source material, I'll much prefer the 'stats on certain tracks and the omnis on others.

End of the day, it's why the gear merry-go-round never stops, IMO.  No design is perfect in every way and - if you're exposed to the SOTA enough - you eventually miss what your current design doesn't offer.

That's no shot at 'stars in general or Soundlab in particular, because I might agree that - overall -  Soundlab is as good as it gets.  It's just that, given enough time with 'em, I'll eventually want more.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,397 posts
 

Amen, brother! The designers of box speakers have to go to extremely great lengths to get overcome the failings inherent in dynamic drivers, the necessity to break up the audible spectrum amongst different sized ones, and the cross-over required to do that, failings not shared to the same degree by not just electrostats, but all planars. Sure, they have their own problems, and, just as in all things hi-fi, one most choose the failings one is happiest living with. For me, there are panel speakers and there is everything else. Electrostats, Magnetic Planars, Ribbons---it's all good!

The first ESL I heard was the RTR tweeter, and was THAT a revelation! I had been saving for a pair of Rectilinear 3's when I heard the RTR in the ESS TransStatic I, and for me that was the end of the Rectilinear! By the time I had the money for the 3, the original Magneplanar Tympani had appeared, and, as I had not yet heard a "full" range ESL, bought them.

Over the ensuing 44 years (!) I have endeavored to hear every panel on the market. There were many I liked, few I didn't, the opposite of dynamic designs. I currently own Eminent Technology LFT-8b's, Tympani T-IV's, and Quad 57's, but could easily live with many others. I really like the Sanders ESL I heard at last Summers The Show in Irvine---a really, really good loudspeaker.  

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