ESL57 vs ESL63

I have a variety of tube and SS amps to use with my 57's: Dynaco ST70, Heath W5's, Golden Tube SE40, Futterman H3 and H3aa's, Quad 303, 50's, 405, GAS Son and Grandson, BEL 1001 ...

I bought my first pair of 57's back in 1981 and kept them in use until 2000. After my move down south in 2015 I purchased two pairs - the prices were right! One pair from Rhode Island, one from England. Yes, the 57 ESL is a speaker that one develops a romantic attraction for!

I can't help but feel that most of the mythology around the Quads originated from the high regard held by his contemporaries for the great man himself, Peter J Walker.

Box/cone loudspeaker manufacturers must have been alarmed upon the arrival of this new technology, but as we have seen, electrostatics were not the future road forwards but merely a sideline.

It's also interesting that although Walker himself believed the 63s to be superior it was the ESL that passed into Hi-Fi legend.

I have the 57s but have spent some significant time with the 63s as well. Overall I prefer the 57s, but I use a set of stands to raise them up a bit to improve the image height. While I use a woofer array and active crossover to biamp in my system, the 57s on their own do bass much better than I expected. They aren't going to go much below 40 Hz but what is there is pleasing. I play a wide variety of music with them including rock.

Mine have the clamp boards installed which means I can use just about any amp with greater than 20 watts power and not have to worry about arcing the speakers. It's a worthwhile upgrade if you purchase a pair without them. I either use Atma-Sphere M60s or a Music Reference RM-10 on the 57s. Both amps work quite well with the speakers.

My plan for a HT room and a separate listening room will not be happening, so they will share duty in my HT, i listen mostly to music. My HT is 13’x19’ the vaulted ceiling runs front to back centered on the 19’ lenth, i think they could sit on my current subs when in use, the subs are 19” tall......