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Small room electrostat/ planar speaker?

In about 30 days will be moving to a new home where its going to be hard to make my 1.7 maggies work in a spouse friendly way ( the only large room is the main living room). I've always gravitated to planars and electrostatics, box speakers that don't sound colored or slow usually cost more than my entire system. Where I'd like to end up is a system that's extremely resolving at low to moderate volume levels, my main dissatisfaction with my current Mg 1.7 speakers and Prima Luna amp is that it really doesn't come to life until the volume is moderate listening levels or higher.

I'm wondering if anyone has seen something that approaches the coherency and speed of the 1.7s that would work in an 11x12 listening room? I'd like to keep the cost limited to $4k if possible.
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johnto
972 posts
 
I wouldn't give up on the 1.7 had mine in a 12 x 15 room about 3' from wall and they sounded amazing.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,397 posts
 
@clio09--- ah, but you can! Since the m/t panel and the woofer each have their own speaker cable binding post, one can simply disconnect the woofer right on it’s post. Any separate, outboard woofer may then be used in it’s place, assuming it’s response extends to 180Hz, the frequency of the crossover. And as the x/o is a simple 1st-order, a capacitor can be installed in the woofer’s power amp to provide the filtering---no electronic x/o required.
clio09
3,341 posts
 
Well it is tempting but I do need a 100 Hz crossover point. The AirSpring woofer system I use was designed by Roger Modjeski and the crossover is the Beveridge RM-3 (also designed by Roger) with 100 Hz 4th order Link-Witz Reilly low pass filter (32 Hz EQ added by Roger) and the high pass filter also 4th order. The woofers resonate at just over 100 Hz, so I would not be able to crossover at 180 Hz. I use 4 boxes spread asymmetrically around the room. The system works great with Rogers ESLs or the 57s.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,397 posts
 
Wish I still lived in San Jose! I'd be up at his place in Berkeley/Oakland a lot. Roger is one of the great designers in Hi-Fi, criminally under-appreciated. I own one of his RM-200 MK.2 amps.
clio09
3,341 posts
 
If you haven't already tried them use 6550s in the 200. It was Brooks Berdan's favorite tube in both the RM-9 and RM-200. Roger kept a special stock of 6550s for Brooks, old Russian ones that if I recall did not have a getter. Alas, no more, but I have Roger's 200 over here and use Svetlana 6550s in it. Another 25 watts per channel.
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