Quad ESLs - I have some questions
thosb, keep an eye out on the used market. Both Acoustat and Sound Labs speakers are indestructible as long as nobody has gone into them. You might trip across a pair at a good price. Once you have lived with one of these there is no going back. Everything else makes Kate Bush sound like Brad Roberts:) |
They were magic ESL’s even by todays esl standard, BUT!! are all dying. Stay away from the original Acoustat ESL’s 1, 1+1,2, 2+2, 3, 4, 6 and 8’s All these now are having problems with the whole honeycomb plastic stators decaying with age, and becoming porous absorbing humidity, which allows for HT leakage arcing tracks to form like a cancer, mainly all around where they sandwich glued front and rear together. And once these cancerous tracks form that’s it good-by panel. After all the plastic honey comb panels were originally just office fluro lighting diffuser covers, never meant to be insulated for 4kv esl voltage https://i.ytimg.com/vi/4m9ybVTLxiw/hqdefault.jpg These are Acoustat 4’s, notice the panels resemblance to office fluro diffusers? https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/P3K12rV-kJxL-Oc9ptuJcITsfn_yuBy5NDsQiw_H65k35TWNj-Dfb2r1fful... And not to mention, the other problem they have, the 100’s of yards of stator wires becoming unglued from those honeycomb plastic stators, as the glue is now brittle and just lets go causing them to rattle. Cheers George |
