Electrostatic speakers?

[Fidji]

ELectrostats are like american [or french] cars.

Not the best in terms of performance, quality, design etc - but there is still something that some people get attracted to ...
E.g. I specifically like "line source" [if this is correct term] type of behavior, where voices and instruments have also "height" and are not confined to tweeter height. All subjecitve stuff.

They absolutely do sound terribly colored [and bright on top] if listened to directly on-axis [and even worse if you do it mono, tried it after reading THE book ] , but this changes a lot with proper placement.

They also hugely benefit if proper EQ is applied to bass/crossover area - active models have built in EQ and also that often mentioned mismatch between woofers and panel is meanwhile solved much better than in the time of Prodigys etc.

 

[TonyJZX]

i think amir said this... electrostats when demonstrated in the showroom sound other worldly.. ethereral

because they're in a treated room and they excel at one certain thing that everyone can obviously hear and they excel at certain kinds of music

but they suck at everything else and they will suck in your untreated living room and you will have issues powering them

 

[Hayabusa]

they excel at certain kinds of music

I enjoy all (read many) kinds my music with my setup...

 

[RetroStereo]

My martinlogan monolith iii hybrids with new panels, new HV power supplies and replaced sbp12-4 Apollo woofers can maintain more than 100dB easily with any musical source material I throw at them. They don't seem to care if it's a capella voice, massed chorus, symphony orchestra, string quartet, solo piano, Beach Boys, Grateful Dead, DSotM or the Telarc recordings of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor or the cannons from the Tchaikovsky 1812.

My ears, on the other hand, cannot.

 

[Bjorn]

Question: for an ESL (or any dipole, really) ... most people try to space them away from the wall to delay the front wall reflection as long as possible. If you are unable to do this, should the front wall be treated with absorption? Or should we forget about dipoles if we are unable to space them away from the front wall? Even if we are able to achieve proper spacing, should the front wall still be treated with absorption?

With close proximity absorption is needed with dipoles. For the area above Schroeder frequency, only two spots need to be treated. For lower absorption clearly you need more.

With good distance, diffusion on front wall can also be great with dipoles. The diffused energy will arrive more laterally compared to diffusion of the rear.

 

[Fidji]

but they suck at everything else and they will suck in your untreated living room and you will have issues powering them

One of old myths re "difficult for amp" - top of the line Logans are half active [or you can power woofers and panels separately on Neoliths] so amp is driving only the panel from 270Hz up. Every well behaved amp, stable to 2 Ohm will do [and enough current, 40A of Purifi modules is more than enough for my 15A's]

Never clipped, neithar amps, nor speakers - I can get easily to 105db in peaks if I want to [I don't I do it only to demonstrate to visits, how loud can HT play without resonances and distortions]

 

[traind]

ELectrostats are like american [or french] cars.

Not the best in terms of performance, quality, design etc - but there is still something that some people get attracted to ...
E.g. I specifically like "line source" [if this is correct term] type of behavior, where voices and instruments have also "height" and are not confined to tweeter height. All subjecitve stuff.

They absolutely do sound terribly colored [and bright on top] if listened to directly on-axis [and even worse if you do it mono, tried it after reading THE book ] , but this changes a lot with proper placement.

They also hugely benefit if proper EQ is applied to bass/crossover area - active models have built in EQ and also that often mentioned mismatch between woofers and panel is meanwhile solved much better than in the time of Prodigys etc.

How far from the front wall have you placed your 15As? Is your room treated? And how do you describe what you love about them? Have you heard other higher priced electrostats?

I have heard them twice. Once in a high end shop (they were a used pair, he did not carry MLs but it was a trade in) where they presented the best soundstage I think I have ever heard. The second time was at a high end Best Buy where I compared them to a pair of Kef Blade Ones. I'll admit I am not some great audio judge but my impression was the Blades were slightly better overall but vocals on the 15As were just so impressive. It's cliche but "in the room" is the best description I can muster for vocal quality.

 

[dlaloum]

One of old myths re "difficult for amp" - top of the line Logans are half active [or you can power woofers and panels separately on Neoliths] so amp is driving only the panel from 270Hz up. Every well behaved amp, stable to 2 Ohm will do [and enough current, 40A of Purifi modules is more than enough for my 15A's]

Never clipped, neithar amps, nor speakers - I can get easily to 105db in peaks if I want to [I don't I do it only to demonstrate to visits, how loud can HT play without resonances and distortions]

"Stable to 2 ohm" is far from a given!! hence "difficult to amp"

Not at all difficult if you have the right amp - but lots of AVR's and other amps are not in fact "stable to 2 ohm"

 

[Fidji]

How far from the front wall have you placed your 15As? Is your room treated? And how do you describe what you love about them? Have you heard other higher priced electrostats?

I have heard them twice. Once in a high end shop (they were a used pair, he did not carry MLs but it was a trade in) where they presented the best soundstage I think I have ever heard. The second time was at a high end Best Buy where I compared them to a pair of Kef Blade Ones. I'll admit I am not some great audio judge but my impression was the Blades were slightly better overall but vocals on the 15As were just so impressive. It's cliche but "in the room" is the best description I can muster for vocal quality.

yes, the room is treated - it is slightly different than it looks - quite lively room with controlled decay, not over-absorbed- avg at 0.32s with +-15% and 1kHz+ linear at 0.35s up to 10kHz basically. Bass is controlled by Waveforming, so 0 audible resonances. Bass traps in corners are range limited to 200Hz, all other panels are cylindrical diffusors with slight absorption. It is kind of optimized for my setup. You can see diffusion behind panels as an example, it really helps, I am not fan of absorbing the front wall, sounds "flat" in terms of spatial cues.

Placement - once you know how it works, it is pretty intuitive - distance from front wall is mathematics [15in rear of cabinet + 27in panel], the you fix forward tilt [vertical in my case] and then start to play with angles - 1/3 of panel is good place to start, more - you get focus and brightness, less - less focus and less brightness - and there is a sweet spot.

EDIT: System also greatly benefits from EQ and professional calibration. I employ filters up to 1kHz, luckily one dip below 1kHz is easily correctable, as it is horizontal dispersion and direct sound are pretty similar. Calibrator has also put great deal of effort inot 100-500Hz are to get as linear response as possible. It results in sound being “big” [for lack of better description]. Very good timing behavior - Group Delay, Impulse and tilted response in the area, more similar to B&K than “Harman” curve.

Especially with good MCH recordings it really is "you are there" immersion.

SHOW US your listening room )

www.audiosciencereview.com

there is a liink in the post with system schematics too.

 

[Newman]

I also think LEDE is being judged partly by the wrong criteria. Its primary objective was not to maximize preference or spaciousness, but to preserve accuracy, clarity and directional information and prevent the control room from masking information already contained in the recording. A sound field that is more spacious or preferred is not necessarily a more accurate monitoring environment.

Where did anyone (with authority) say otherwise?

I'm just wondering if you think Toole's phrase, "Recordings need to work in ordinary rooms or they miss the target audience.", was suggesting that mixing environments should mirror end user environments. IMHO it was not suggesting that.

It's possible you are responding to something that was not said.

 

[RickS]

FYI, several off-topic post were moved to the Luminaries discussion thread.