Your favorite Electrostatic, Panel spkr

We've been in business 43 years. Over that time, we've had lots of customers with ESLs- OTLs and ESLs have been the match made in heaven (sound wise, anyway) since the ESL57 was first introduced.

I've heard a lot of ESLs with our amps at customer's homes and also at audio shows. IME/IMO Sound Lab is the state of the art in ESLs- they play the widest bandwidth and most dynamic range of any ESL made. A recent change in them (about 4-5 years ago) also made them fairly easy to drive.

FWIW, ESLs behave differently from box speakers in that the impedance curve is based on a capacitor rather than a driver in a box (with its resulting resonance). This should be fairly obvious, but the take home is that the speaker is thus best driven by an amplifier that can make constant power rather than constant voltage, due to the opening statement in this paragraph. Since most amplifiers are intended to be voltage sources (example: a solid state amp that can double its power as impedance is halved), they will tend to sound bright on an ESL and also lack bass impact. This is because the ESL impedance curve typically varies by about 9 or 10:1 from the bass frequencies to the highs.


When you get a Sound Lab set up properly, you will find it to be one of the fastest and most transparent speakers made.

Electrostatics have numerous issues...power handling and shrillness on some recordings.  They are good, but tend to be very tiring to listen to over time and at volume. 

One of the best, the old Mark Levinson HQD system had two pair of stacked Quad's and a Decca Ribbon Tweeter plus a couple of 24" Hartley woofers (full disclosure: my company made some of the stands and boxes for them).

https://www.google.com/search?q=hqd+system&rlz=1C1ZCEB_enUS845US845&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=-gvwX2mo2Aq69M%253A%252CEi3b-adUQmIt4M%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kS3nPQBrBSAB0kzeiXNPr4SGjCgDA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi13uvc6aHkAhULIKwKHcz3A9UQ9QEwBHoECAgQDw#imgrc=-gvwX2mo2Aq69M:

Magneplanars, on the other hand. IF SET UP PROPERLY, and driven by pretty good hardware, simply disappear and let the music out.  No distortion, no "listening fatigue" or other negative qualities.  If you love pounding bass, buy a subwoofer or 3, I guess.

Go to your dealer, take various speakers home and have them set-up professionally by the dealer, and make your own decision, please.

Remember, YOUR ROOM is the most important element in any sound system.

Cheers!

How can so many people who claim to be audiophiles and claim to have owned Maggies recommend them to someone looking for electrostatice speaker recommendations?
Have you noticed a power cord and a big power supply on the back of your Maggies? :-)
In the the right room, in the right place, with the right amp, Maggies are incredible. I’m not putting them down. I’m on my second pair now and they are what I’ve used 90% of the time since the early 80’s.
Just asking!

I have owned 3.6 Maggies for over 10 years.  They have lived in a number of rooms, but based upon my experience, 3.7s might be a bit too big for your small room.

If budget is an issue, the new LRS planars with strong amplification and a sub might be optimal.

Good luck in your journey!

@mwinkc 
If you follow the OPs earlier posts, you would see that he is quite interested in the smaller Maggies (which, by the way, do fall into the category of being a panel speaker) for his room. 
I have owned both ribbons and Quad ESLs and quite known the difference, but do appreciate the qualities they share.
For myself and other posters here, not to have mentioned the smaller Maggies as a viable choice for his fairly small room, would have been a dis-service. Lighten up.............Jim