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Electrostatic Speakers Vs. Horn/component Tweeter

I’m curious… when a horn or tweeter goes bad, it’s clearly obvious.  The driver is shot and the audio sounds clipped and distorted.  Electrostatic however, have massive surface areas and use static electricity to vibrate the material…. So when an electrostatic speaker goes bad, what actually happens to cause it to go bad, and does it go bad like a tweeter, where it goes from sounding fine to sounding like crap in a split second?  Or will an electrostatic speaker slowly decay over time, so you don’t notice it initially, and then one day, it just doesn’t sound as good as you remember it sounding?  If an electrostatic speaker goes bad, what causes it?  Is it torn material?  Is it something where you can replace a single small part?  Or do you typically have to replace the entire panel?

I’ve come across plenty of blown regular speakers in my life, but never a blown (if that’s even possible) electrostatic speaker.

maverick3n1

Showing 1 response by gdnrbob

gdnrbob
4,471 posts
 

Since I’m used to damaged speakers being blown, I’m wondering if these can be partially degraded without being destroyed, or if damaged electrostatic speakers are about as clear as regular speakers when they’ve been damaged.

 

Hmm, interesting questions. I think the people to ask are Martin Logan. 

My 2 cents:

Perhaps you should get an amp/receiver that can power your speakers properly.  You mention setting the receiver to 'small size'. Perhaps this be a workaround, but  a sub will only lessen an amps power demands if it is run with a high pass crossover (ala Vandersteen).-Perhaps this is what ' Small size' does, but it probably impacts sound reproduction.

B

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