Effects Of Power Cords On Electrostatic Speakers

@ghdprentice is always worth reading. I have never heard a really good cone system, but I’m sure that his is worth every dime and that I would love it.

By all means, get on a plane and hang out in a high end store for a couple of days. That’s where I heard my first planars, Magnepan Tympani 1a’s, back in ’73. Never went back to cones for very long - longest was a hybrid, but the marriage of the cone and ESL drivers was closer to a discord after a while - to my ears. At that time.

But - I’m really wedded to my ESL’s and Class A monoblocks (dissipate 110W, deliver about 30W). The great thing about solid state is that you can design amps which cannot overdrive the speakers - so you don’t need protection circuits or other devices, which always degrade the sound. Magnepans with Brystons round out the system, which my room needs

If you have the itch to improve, you can upgrade the crossovers. Not hard and definitely worth the money.

The new Grado Epoch cartridge gets me closer to live music, but my ears tell me that there’s still a way to go.

@terry9 

thank you for your kind words

I think this is why auditioning is really important.
 

There are many spectacular sounding planar systems out there.

I remember listening to a set of ESS AMT 1D’s and having tears come to my eyes. But in my current system, they would be intolerable. Their lack of coherence across the audio spectrum was far too great, as well as many other shortcomings. So a lot of the stuff has to do with where are in your journey. Auditioning is really important.

Different audiophiles have different end points.

@ghdprentice Ah, coherence. Yes, that's the big one. After smoothness, though, IMO. The Quad 2905's do both well.

*munching popcorn, too lazy to go score some beer...wipes hands...*

@ghdprentice :

Different audiophiles have different end points.

Yeah, and that’s more/less the line in the sand.... ;)

Isn’t it....

I’ve 4 ESS ’large’ amts’ that, given their coherence flaws & other shortcomings I prefer over cones & domes....

I used to own a pair of 1Bs', as flawed as they may have been...

I don't own a lava lamp; never have, either...watching wax in oil warmed by a lamp has limited appeal...unless one is very....🙄....'thrashed'...

(I do have one of these...

...although mine is elongated....like a big blue sperm...*L*)

I don't 'engage' it while listening, nor have I changed the ac cord on it, to make it 'more intense', or 'mellow'....   It just is what it is, and enjoyed as such...😏

@terry9 @ghdprentice Now you’ve both got me with more systems to check out and understand. (I spent last evening until now checking out systems & You Tube videos discussing these systems.) I can see why I’ll need to make a trip to listen to the Planars, which I’ll probably have to do at the end of the month. Now "coherence"? What do you mean by the term? Seamless integration with the various drivers across the audio spectrum? relative dispersion of the drivers? or does it refer to traits within a driver itself? And also, I’m still researching what specs I might look at to identify the dynamic range of a driver.

Any experience attaching horns to a planar? Or are there any systems out there that do so (besides Joseph Crowe’s)? Any suggestions on things to keep in mind were I to go down the path of putting a horn onto a Planar? I don’t know if I can afford a Planar that would cover all bass, so I’ve been focusing on a tight, high BL driver that would carry it up to, say, 160-320Hz, with the Planars taking over from there and up, so one concern I have (naturally) is how they might blend together for tonality purposes around the crossover point.