What is your opinion regarding electrostatics?

Duke, nice post. Nothing to add, except to remind you that even though a large panel does manage to "shake the walls" at 28cps, they still do not have the piston action of a great 12 or 15" woofer system, to give the "slam in your gut" bass delivery.
A woofer assembly like the one used in the Infinity IRS V or the many great subs that have been made with proper attention to ideal dampening Q ratios, is the only thing that can give something like "The Sheffield Drum Record" its proper dues. I wish it were'nt this way, because the only way that I have found to integrate the ESLs and the subs sucessfully is to run the panels full range and then overlap the subs. Just a thought to those that want it all in a system. When Levinson brought the HQD to the shows in 78, I think he really did have the right basic idea that stands to this day, at least in concept........Frank

Thanks for jumping in there Frank. You made the same point that i would about large panel's having "reasonable" (albeit very good quality in terms of being quick and tight) bass but nothing in the same league as an array of large dynamic pistons that are well tuned.

It takes both surface area and displacement to move a lot of air. Panels simply lack the excursion capabilities to do this unless you have a LOT of them. Having said that, i've never heard ANY panel type speaker ( planar, ribbon, e-stat, etc...) that could give you chest compression let alone sound clean attempting to do so.

As to the comments about low frequencies NOT being omni in some designs, that goes against all of my audio education. This is NOT to say that you are wrong ,it is impossible or that i know everything. I am surely just as "pea brained" as anybody else ( and maybe even moreso ) on a more than a few subjects. I'll have to do some digging and see what i can come up with using various resources.

While i will look into the examples that Duke was so kind enough to present, i dislike having to rely on someone trying to push their own product as the sole source of info on the subject. I hope that you can understand where i'm coming from on that one Duke. If anyone can come up with some "unbiased" sources of info, PLEASE post them so that we can all learn from them.

As to what the advantage of dipolar bass response was, i was trying to make clear that a standard "front loaded box" will ALWAYS have to deal with unequal pressure in the room. The dipole, when situated near mid room, will have relatively equal loading and pressure drops both fore and aft. In effect, this cancels a LOT of the loading effect of the room and can offer truly outstanding "clean" and "linear" bass reproduction. Kind of like having even weight on both sides of a well balanced "teeter-totter" (sp ???). Everything remains balanced so long as there is no outside interference. Sean
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Point conceded, Frap - a first-class brace of 12's or 15's will indeed outslam a big panel.

I agree with you that very good results seem to come from running the panels full range and then using a low-Q sealed sub to add the ultradeep bass. This preserves all the superb pitch definition the panels have to offer. The REL's come to mind.

Sean, I have yet to hear an electrostatic or planar magnetic that can displace enough air to give you that solid chest-whump that a big dynamic can. However, a dynamic dipole (using say a dozen or so 12" woofers) can do it.

I don't blame you one bit, Sean, for wanting information on dipoles from source besides some guy selling them. And if I have come across as pushing my product, then I owe you all an apology. I believe in dipoles, and I've tried to articulate their advantages because they aren't common knowledge.

Just for the record, my background is that of an amateur speaker builder, not a salesman. I'm not blowing ad copy at you - I'm telling you things I learned over the course of 20 years of seriously studying and building loudspeakers. My intention was to one day become a manufacturer (which I almost did), but when I encountered a particular speaker I hung up my table saw and became a part-time, in-home dealer.

Sean, if you would like, I can find for you papers published in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society that are the basis for many of the things I talk about. I didn't want to come across as some kind of name-dropper by tossing out references left and right. And frankly, unless people are really going to look them up, I'd rather not go to all the trouble to dig them out. But I understand your skepticism of claims made by a dealer, so if the references would help please let me know.

Again, I enjoy very much engaging in such dialogue. Thank you, Frap and Sean. Until next time!

Kindest regards,

Duke

Audiokinesis point, that the bass of dipoles is NOT omnidirectional as well as the reasons he gave for it, (cancellation of out of phase front and rear waves) is common knowledge here in Europe. The reason for that may possibly be, that electrostats, at least until about 10 years ago, when horns again became interesting, were the speakers of choice, if you wanted to have anything resembling a live jazz combo or chamber music. And since the chance to hear anything really loud would send the police to you though the kind graces of your neighbours, they did also fine with orchestral music.
Furthermore, Audiokinesis is right on the money maintaining, that when with dipoles the direct and reverberant fields sound pretty much the same, you've got them set up well. I should know. I've been playing
around with them for more than thirty years.
Whereas I will contest Sean's statement that most stators don't have much output below 100hz, I fully aggree with him, that it takes " surface area and displacement " to move a lot of air. Hence my idea of using "walls" of stators, in fact 6 on each side and stacked, to try to solve this problem. In fact it did not, until with the help of a pair of old Maggie bass panels and three different sets of subwoofers and much agonizing in trying to blend and voice it all, I finally had the problem licked to my satisfaction and the legs of my pants flipping, when sufficient bass energy was around.
As you've probably guessed, if you've bothered to read until here, I am not a technical man at all. I prefer to find out things for myself by trial and error and the only thing on earth I trust are my own ears, which (masochistically perhaps) I regularly immerse in live music.
Cheers to all,
Detlof

Well, Detlof, beat me to it on the question of stators' bass directionality!!! Fortunately, for I couldn't have put it better; my experience is identical (down to the police visit).

Another small point: I had good dispersion in the mid-highs but also good imaging with very narrow e-stators (~1 ft in width, 7ft high). Never managed to add a sub, so bass was clear but intensity was lacking.

BUT, coming back to Herve's question, I DID listen to Finals yrs ago, BUT memory hardly serves: a)I don't remember those being hybrid / b)they were driven by a SS (Krell?? Sphinx?? something like that) /c) the music was definitely classical (cd: Brahms 1st piano concerto) and...
I have retained an aural image of holographic, plush sound.

Very vague, I know. Sorry!