Pearljam5000
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I see no discussion about them around here, are they that bad? Martin Logans look pretty cool.
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Electrostatic speakers?
- Thread starter Pearljam5000
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Hi Pearljam5000,
‘I was wondering the same thing? I have a set of the ESL-X’s and love their sound. No doubt someone here will come along shortly and inform us how poor they measure. But to my ears they sing and give me a wide open sense of sound that is captivating. Coincidentally I have them paired with a set of JTR captivated 2400ULFs.
‘I was wondering the same thing? I have a set of the ESL-X’s and love their sound. No doubt someone here will come along shortly and inform us how poor they measure. But to my ears they sing and give me a wide open sense of sound that is captivating. Coincidentally I have them paired with a set of JTR captivated 2400ULFs.
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Several of us have them. I have some Soundlabs. I've owned several ESL's. I suppose the big thing is we need to get some to Amir to measure on the Klippel device. Then discuss the results. Ray Dunzl has some Martin Logans and has posted many aspects of measurements using REW.
solderdude
Grand Contributor
They will measure terrible for sure. Mine fit your sound description as well. Reference sound though measured they will have a very poor rating.
Fortunately for me ratings mean nothing, actual sound does.
Midwest Blade
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I have a pair of Quad ESL, the original electrostatic loudspeaker. These are late editions from the end of their production run. To me, I have found nothing that has compared within reason. They are still in original condition and work fine. A couple of years ago I gave them a thorough cleaning and was advised that if they continue to work, no other things need to be done. I dread the day when they stop working. I have put a lot of hours on them this past year with the lock down and worry that I will miss them when it comes time to move back to the city.
They truly are remarkable and hard to believe they were developed in the 50’s.
They truly are remarkable and hard to believe they were developed in the 50’s.
solderdude
Grand Contributor
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
I had Martin Logans for about 10 years.
I moved back to dynamic speakers, although I still have a pair of Sequels sitting in my shed.
Even on the more recent ESL models, I never felt like the panel and bass box integrated very well, and it lacked impact and room pressurization in the 'power zone' no matter what I did.
If you want high volumes and/or pounding bass, then the 'stat is not for you. They're too delicate for that. I think one reason bass is anemic in 'stats because the speaker is free standing, the way a boxless woofer driver in the open would be. Cancellation severely attenuates the lows.
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
I don't really listen to high volumes or pounding bass.
But I found them to be lacking 'ooomph' on orchestral music, and weak double bass on jazz (I'm a bass player).
That being said, acoustic guitar and strings are great due to the very low distortion the in upper mids / treble.
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
Yes, that's the intent.
But it's not so successful on the medium sized stat panels.
The big giant MLs that are the size of refrigerators pull it off because the panel itself can go deeper.
Midwest Blade
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My preference lies in jazz along with a variety of popular music, female vocal and a light smattering of classical pops. I have always found my Quads are uncanny when it comes to acoustic guitar and bass despite not having much in the way of low end grunt. Piano and female vocals become quite vivid when in the listening window. I don’t listen to anything extremely loud or rocking. They are very much an individual pair of speakers in that they have a fairly tight listening window.
I have a pair of MartinLogan CLS II’s in my basement. Used them from about ‘89 to 2004. They are full range, reach down to about 40hz, but I always used a subwoofer with them. They take an incredible amount of time to set up and when you finally get it right you have to keep your head in a vice because the sweet spot is very small. But it is very sweet! When it’s right nothing comes close to their resolving power. I moved on to B&W Signature Nautilus series because of the head in a vice sweet spot.
They also create a difficult measuring problem because the diaphragm is so large that normal measuring techniques fail to capture the actual in room response.
They also create a difficult measuring problem because the diaphragm is so large that normal measuring techniques fail to capture the actual in room response.
Sure they look cool and sound good too.
Never had anything else in the past 25years.
@RayDunzl may have a different mind though. He hides them
In this case it is desirable to figure out why the measurements don't correlate with perceived sound quality and change the way measurements are taken, so that the measurements correlate with sound quality. Perhaps the final score for a speaker should be influenced more by the measurements taken at the rear of the speaker, since the sound to the rear of the speaker will have a strong role in determining the reverberant sound field.
That's one of the two reasons. The other reason is that the volumetric displacement, obtained by multiplying the surface area by the linear displacement (excursion), is very small, owing to the fact that the larger of the two factors (area) is typically not nearly large enough to compensate for the small linear displacement. Of course this isn't anything that anyone who has ever given it a few seconds of thought hasn't figured out. The fundamental limitation is that if you increase the area to compensate for the small linear displacement, the frequency at which dispersion very nearly vanishes moves even lower. In practice the poor dispersion isn't necessarily noticeable, because the reverberant sound field has much more high frequency content compared to conventional speakers where most all of the high frequency content is contained within a narrow beam directed to the front of the speaker. Nevertheless, if you place electrostatics in a large room such that the sound reflected off the wall behind the speakers is delayed and diluted by the time it reaches the listener, then for any listener close to the speaker, the change in tonality as you move over to one side is not subtle.
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
Despite no longer owning them, I do not regret my time with electrostats.
You have to own panel speakers at least once in your life to earn all the audiophile merit badges.
You have to own panel speakers at least once in your life to earn all the audiophile merit badges.
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