Sanders 10B Electrostatic

Hello Bifwynne, and thank you.

I did a search of Audiogon forums before posting my question. I will absolutely take Ralph’s recommendations to heart.

I would like input for as many brands as possible as well as power requirement. I have zero experience with this speaker other than listening to it at shows.

I hope someone with experience can chime in here. I do seem to recall some people (was it you, Albert?) who used Wolcott amplifiers with Sound Lab electrostatic speakers, I wonder if they might be a good match for the Sanders.

Rcprince,
Yes, when I had Sound-Lab speakers I did run Wolcott amps with great success. Later on I bought VTL 750 and had them for many years.

What I’m hoping to learn is if Sanders is hard to drive and approximate power requirement.

Albert, I hope member Cerrot will chime in. He owns the latest rev of Sanders' speakers - the ones w/ the aluminum woofer; i *think* it's the 10D but I'm not sure.
If you look at his system, he's using Sanders' Magtech amps as well.

The electrostatic speaker can be modeled electrically as a huge capacitor which means that it's output impedance is high at low frequencies & low at high frequencies. Just the opposite of any conventional box speaker. So, the amp has to be designed to output sufficient current to drive into a higher load impedance at low frequencies otherwise the bass response will suffer. I believe that Sanders' ESL & Magtech amps are designed to this. There must be other amps in the market that are also designed to drive an ESL but none of them come to mind.
The Wolcotts are not an option any more, I believe, as they are out-of-biz (?).
Maybe Tube Research Labs (TRL)? I know an acquaintance who has successfully used them on his Apogee speakers but the Apogee is a planar magnetic speaker; quite different from an ESL.

Bombayalla,

I agree about Wolcott, I moved out of mine when service options dried up. They were good but other amps have come along since then.

A friend I spoke to today said there were tube amps designed for Sanders speakers. The brand is Western Reserve, I found a review at 6 moons but other than that I have not even heard of it.

Western Reserve appears to be stereo using four KT-88 per channel. I think a 250 to 400 watt designed for the new KT-150 would be another alternative.