Electrostatic Speakers

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A passive crossover is generally difficult to design.
Although a single capacitor can be used with good results just to attenuate the lower frequency's to keep the step up transformers core from saturating causing distortion at the lowest frequency range.

A electronic crossover is much easier to use and design as most of the lumped reactances of the transformer and the panel can be for the most part be ignored as far as choosing the crossover frequency.

I run mine flat with every thing below about 100hz cut off.

Basically you need an amp that doesn't mind low impedance's and will stay stable with them.

As the frequency gets higher the impedance get lower and can get as far down as 1 or 2 ohms or lower sometimes at 20Khz.

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I used to own them ML, Soundlabs, Quads, Accoustats,. They are one of the great sounds you will hear regarding live music.No dynamic speakers come even close.
 
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Those are not electrostatic speakers in any way. The tweeters are derived from the Heil pleated tweeters. An electrostatic speaker has to be energized with a voltage so they always have some kind of power supply that plugs into AC.
Only some of the Martin Logans are electrostatic and most of those are hybrid with electrostatic tweeter/midrange elements with dynamic cone woofers.
 
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I personally like Electrostats. It's widely known they can be very power hungry, and dicey on placement. If you can nail those two things, they sound amazing. Some solid state amps (Krell, Adcom Gold Badge, Newer Mac) can sound quite cold. The only real negative thing I have to say, they'll ravage any poor quality recording. Most any mainstream recording in the past decade has mediocre mastering, no soundstage, no depth, and sound very thin.
 
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I used to own a pair of ML's. The bass was *meh*, still used a traditional sub, but the high frequency and upper midranges were clearer than I can ever get from an electromagnetic driver. It makes it sound ever more so refined and crisp almost as if the source quality is better.

Thats probably due to a sharp and quicker response time of a film. Although I am sure if you take a good enough quality electromagnetic driver you can get exceptional sound also.
 
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IMHO ELS's are the best sounding speakers that one can have !!!

I build my own and have had super results as well as saved a ton of cash!!!

It is not hard to do, although some may argue this as there is a bit of a learning curve in order to thoroughly understand the workings of such devices.

Head on over to DIYAudio for more info,

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/

Electrostat's are here,

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/planars-exotics/

All are welcome and it is here where we share our little secrets of different forms of construction,materials and drive electronics.

I am quite fluent there and I have been involved in extensive research on materials to use that are readily available.
My goal is to get more people involved into this wonderful technology and to show how great results can be achieved on a very small budget and have a product as good as if not better than a commercially built unit.

If you are into Headphones there a few of us that build those as well.
There is a whole thread that is dedicated to those.

It is free to join the forum and I go by the same name I use here if you should venture into the forum and it would be cool to see you there!

A fellow DIYer CharlieM also has a website dedicated to his Beautiful setup and gives a step by step description of how they are made and can be found here,

http://jazzman-esl-page.blogspot.com/

I personally have been focusing on some small desktop models that I use nearfield for my computer as they can be made at any size that you wish.

From these big beautiful ones,

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/planars-exotics/181041-my-2-nd-esl-attempt-2.html#post2519338

to my little tiny ones using a small 5 1/4" woofer to handle some bass,

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/planars-exotics/109789-esl-diaphragm-coating-8.html#post2162068

more recent measurement,

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/planars-exotics/199519-some-more-questions-els-design-3.html#post2883721

even these little panels have absolutely no coloration and will produce well over 105db on the desktop with a modest amount of power, I have measured 110db at the diagphram running all day long.

Anyway, I hope this helps you and would like to see you on DIYAudio sometime !!!

Cheers !!!

jer :)
 
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very intriguing. Might have to try it. Everyone stated passive crossovers didn't work well. What are your thoughts? Was it a lack of power, or a wide variance in impedance? IE would an amp with a larger impedance range do better?
 
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A passive crossover is generally difficult to design.
Although a single capacitor can be used with good results just to attenuate the lower frequency's to keep the step up transformers core from saturating causing distortion at the lowest frequency range.

A electronic crossover is much easier to use and design as most of the lumped reactances of the transformer and the panel can be for the most part be ignored as far as choosing the crossover frequency.

I run mine flat with every thing below about 100hz cut off.

Basically you need an amp that doesn't mind low impedance's and will stay stable with them.

As the frequency gets higher the impedance get lower and can get as far down as 1 or 2 ohms or lower sometimes at 20Khz.

This is a function of the Transformer residual capacitance+the panels capacitance and the step up transformation ratio as per frequency.

Generally for a frequency range of 200hz to 20Khz the impedance ratio (range) will be 100:1 as well.
A high impedance of 100 ohms won't be a problem or effect any of today's modern amplifiers.

Also if the leakage inductance of the transformer is too high combined with the total capacitance this can bring the resonant frequency of the transformer into the audio range and the amplifier see's this as a short circuit and creates a tremendous load on the amp as well.

So does saturation of the transformers core at low frequency.

There are ways to combat this as everything is a compromise.
We have gotten very good results by using some common toroidal power transformers used in reverse as step up transformers.

I have a whole thread dedicated to their design and how they work.

Generally two average sized panel around 4 square feet each can and will drive anyone out of a room when driven properly and will give any average woofer system a hard time to keep up.

They can be run fullrange as well but it takes a very large surface area to get any good bass out of them depending on your listening habits.

The sound of them is jaw dropping even for my little panels as I have yet to listen to mine in stereo in a long time since I built them in 2003.
Especially when I run them full range at low levels, as not to saturate the core at lower frequency's.

I am building a new set as the old ones in the pictures were just mainly used for R&D and they have finally expired.
He,he,he,he, Yes, I have burned them up.... Badly!
This has all been documented as to why in various threads.

But they cost me next to nothing to build and I can make 5 more pair for less than $15 or $20
Heck I have been working with my original set for nearly 10 Years now and have only had to replace the diagphram due to burn holes a few times.
This was caused from a failure in the stator coating and this has been solved as well.

Most use perforated metal to build with and this works great and is pretty fool proof.
But I use aluminium window screen as this is the cheapest method of construction by far.
I have had some difficulty along the way and have solved them since.
As I was pushing my little panels as far and hard as I could just to find their weaknesses at extremes of over 8Kv of bias voltage and over 20Kv peak to peak on the staotors in a .070" Diagphram to stator gap.

They were very very loud in excess of 110db at 1 meter.
And about 100db at 1 meter with a very finicky cheapy amplifier (that likes to shut down when it gets a difficult load) with only a 20v Peak to peak (10v peak)signal into a 256:1 transformation ratio.
This was the setup on the last frequency response test in the above link biamped with a 5 1/4" woofer.

A larger panel does not need these extreme voltages to get to this level of output as it has more surface area.
Thus requiring less work from the amplifier and a lower transformation ratio as well to keep the impedance in a happy range for the amplifier.

That is pretty much it in a simplified nutshell, but feel free to ask any other questions and I will do my best to answer them.

This type of stuff is on going in extreme detail at DIYaudio.

Enjoy !!!

jer :)
 
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