ricevs,
Agree that your mods in concept would probably improve my electrostatic, which uses some mediocre materials. However, all of the stats currently available have basic flawed concepts, such as large convex curved panels. Large straight planar panels like Maggies and Apogees suffer from similar problems. Think of a large panel as having a huge number of small drivers radiating to the listener with different angles of dispersion patterns. The result is a chaotic summation of sounds, creating time smearing. I was shocked at how mediocre the Apogees that I heard were--the original tall Apogee, Scintilla, Duetto, etc. The Maggie 20 original had poorer clarity although more bass than the 3 model at the time, the mid 80’s. The larger the panel, the worse the clarity from more chaotic hodge-podge radiation patterns.
You could certainly improve the sound from these poor designs with your mods, but superior results will be from better designs with even mediocre parts. Of course, the best result will be from better designs with the best mods.
My concept of the best possible panel is a slice of a spherical membrane with CONCAVE radiation to the listener. If you sit 8 feet away, the sphere has a radius of curvature of 8 feet, about 5 feet tall and 1 foot wide to get enough membrane area for loud enough SPL’s. Soundlab uses small cells, which is on the right track, but their convex curvature rolls off HF for much of the large panel that is way off axis to the listener. In my concept, each small cell curved concavely, would beam the sound directly to the listener. The only drawback is the need to sit in the small sweet spot. Anyone who goes through all the expense and effort in assembling a system should be willing to get the best sound by sitting in the sweet spot.
My Audiostatic 240 single panel is 5.3" wide and 48" tall as a flat straight panel. If I accidentally move the panel off axis, I hear the loss of clarity, which demonstrates the necessity of meticulous positioning for the best sound. Even though it dates from 1980, newer stats suffer from flawed thinking, resulting in sound that is less clear. My concept would be even better than my Audiostatic, but there is no market for an electrostatic with ultimate clarity in the minds of 99.9% of audiophiles--they prioritize bass and high SPL’s.
For dynamic speakers, I respect 2 way designs using the best drivers. Their obvious shortcoming is the relatively massive weight of their drivers compared to the near zero mass of stat drivers. But their strength is accurate imaging due to the small radiating area, compared to the bloated imaging from large curved panels which detracts from the benefits of their low mass drivers.
I still marvel at the excellent clarity from the Silver 8 (forgot the brand) 2 way speaker you posted 1-2 years ago.