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Electrostatic pros and cons.

I recently saw a feature on the program, "how it's made" on electrostatic speakers and it piqued my interest in them. I was wondering the pros and cons of them, their placement, space needs, sound, etc. Any advice would be appreciated.









128x128giantsalami
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,577 posts
 
I seem to recall that the Quads measured with the lowest distortion of any speaker available at the time (back in the 1960s-70s).

The Sound Labs seem to be the Sate of the Art in ESLs. The newer ones are fairly efficient- once you translate the numbers to real world, about 90dB by comparison.


Getting the older Quads and the Sound Labs to play bass is a bit of a trick- you have to have an amplifier that can make power into higher impedances. If you do, they play bass very nicely!

ESLs are different from a lot of speakers in that they work best if the amplifier can make constant power into them at any frequency rather than constant voltage. IOW an amplifier that can double power as the impedance is cut in half will be bass shy and too bright on many ESLs.  The reason is that the impedance curve of an ESL is not a map of its efficiency as is common with most box speakers. That has a lot to do with the fact that there is no box and its associated resonance and also because the impedance curve of the speaker is based on a capacitance.

inna
7,132 posts
 
There was that place called Hi-Fi Farm that sold some big electrostatic speakers made in the Netherlands. They were bigger than the biggest SoundLabs, don't know better or not. Retail was about $100k, I saw their demo for I think $40k.
Hybrid speakers like Avant Garde Duo, Rogers, Martin Logan etc. is never a good idea. You don't want hybrids because you will never achieve the proper integration, not that you will fully achieve it with the Trio. I guess, overall best dynamic speakers are still the best speakers. And best tube amps are best amps. What else is new ?
audiokinesis
2,715 posts
 

@erik_squires , I use measurements every time I design a speaker, which is fairly often. Sometimes there is a discrepancy between my observations and the measurements, and in those cases I try to find the explanations. I remember my first attempt at designing a speaker using decent measuring equipment, and the closer I got to "flat" the worse it sounded. My measurements were accurate, yet there was more going on than what my measurements were telling me.

Often a particular measurement doesn’t tell enough of the story, but attempting to understand "enough of the story" is inevitably a descent into the technical.

Of course I could be wrong at any point along the way.

Duke

clio09
3,343 posts
 
You don't want hybrids because you will never achieve the proper integration

I can say that hasn't been my experience.
clio09
3,343 posts
 
@bdp24: Yes that was him and those were the speakers. IIRC Sean told me he worked on the Beveridge 4.

In addition to being on the side walls the speakers were positioned equidistant from the front and back walls. You could sit on either side of the room and listen to the speakers.
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