Wyn, I'm not claiming anything original here, except perhaps my anal-retentive dedication to costly devices!
Speaking of which - direct drive ESL. I have new generation Quads, which I opened up as soon as the warranty expired. I found a step-up transformer for each stator, cheap WW resistors and ceramic caps with their high dielectric constant. Obviously, all of these had to change.
As you seem to be an owner of ESL's, obviously you know that the step-up transformer tends to ring unless the input is coupled through a resistor. I changed the step-ups to a toroidal device which drove both stators, requiring an input resistor of about an ohm, which is a natural place for nichrome wire. Since I needed speaker cables anyway, I thought,"Why not use the nichrome wire for both purposes?"
Now I am thinking of high potential amps driving the stators directly, without any step-up device. I was wondering if you knew about HV transistors, and if you could save me some time and some angst with awful prototypes. That's all.
Speaking of which - direct drive ESL. I have new generation Quads, which I opened up as soon as the warranty expired. I found a step-up transformer for each stator, cheap WW resistors and ceramic caps with their high dielectric constant. Obviously, all of these had to change.
As you seem to be an owner of ESL's, obviously you know that the step-up transformer tends to ring unless the input is coupled through a resistor. I changed the step-ups to a toroidal device which drove both stators, requiring an input resistor of about an ohm, which is a natural place for nichrome wire. Since I needed speaker cables anyway, I thought,"Why not use the nichrome wire for both purposes?"
Now I am thinking of high potential amps driving the stators directly, without any step-up device. I was wondering if you knew about HV transistors, and if you could save me some time and some angst with awful prototypes. That's all.