Phono Stage upgrade to complement Dohmann Helix One Mk 2

@drbond , Yes of course. It announces every frequency as it goes down and has two tracks, one for vertical resonance and the other horizontal.

I do not have to worry about MA2’s making bass. I cross to subs digitally at 100 hz, 48 dB/oct. It is not about bass. It is about distortion and realistic volume levels. If you play a Bill Evans record, say Waltz for Debby at the volume the music had that night at the Village Vanguard, without subwoofers the SoundLabs will crap  a brick regardless of what amp you are using to drive them.

I am down in Florida all the time. My sister lives just north of Miami and my step mother just south of Miami. You never come to New England? You need to come up the second week in October and see the colors. In Florida all you have is endless flatness, a few palm trees and hurricanes not to mention DisneyLand.

"If you play a Bill Evans record, say Waltz for Debby at the volume the music had that night at the Village Vanguard, without subwoofers the SoundLabs will crap  a brick regardless of what amp you are using to drive them."

With all respect, this is just wrong. Even though I am sick of "Waltz for Debby", though never sick of Bill Evans. And while I am sure there may be a rendition of WfD on one of the live VV performance albums (I’d have to check), he also recorded it in at least one studio session. Here’s where I debate whether to bring up the modification I made to the SL crossover that improved both efficiency and the impedance curve to suit our OTL amplifiers. The 845PX can reproduce the lowest frequencies of the bass player (Paul Motian?) on WfD at very satisfying SPLs. What it cannot do is blast you out of your seat on a hard rock recording, which I am sure Mijo’s subwoofers CAN do. And my Atma OTLs are more like MA1s than MA2s in terms of power output. (They are neither, use type 7241 triodes as output tubes on MA2 chassis’ using MA2 power transformers.)

@mijostyn 

I'm in central Florida, between Tampa and Orlando, probably about 3-4 hours from Miami.  If you're interested in listening to the Dohmann, and the CH Precision P1, just PM me.  If you can bring your (soon to be new) Channel D along to A-B, that would be fun!  

Dear @mijostyn  : "  without subwoofers the SoundLabs will crap  a brick regardless of what amp you are using to drive them. "

You are rigth and is my experience not only with the Soundlab and other electrostatic . Electrostatic speakers could start to fail between 35hz-40hz and down listening at live MUSIC SPL and as you said it's a matters of distortion levels and that's why any passive dynamic speakers needs to works with subwoofers no matters what.

To handled " accurately " that  low bass subwoofers is a must and have not substitute.

R.

The thing is that Mijostyn chose a not very challenging piece of music (Waltz for Debby is hardly equivalent to the 1812 Overture), played by a jazz trio to boot. You say that any ESL starts to fall off at 35-40Hz. Even accepting that lower limit (which I don’t because the lower limit will be different for diaphragm surface area, stator to panel spacing, etc), there is probably nothing below 40hz (>2 octaves below middle C) in Waltz for Debby. There’s no way to prove my point, since you guys cannot make it to my listening room, but I have no problem with Bill Evans Trio playing anything at realistic SPLs. A small factor to consider also is that Mijo and I previously guesstimated that my speakers have about 400 sq in more radiating surface area compared to his (because mine are wider by 4 inches). Whether this makes a critical difference to bass extension or not, I do not know, but it doesn’t hurt. I also think the curvature of the PX speakers is greater than that of Mike’s speakers, and that might also reduce phase cancellation of bass frequencies. Finally, I do not and did not claim that using a subwoofer would not be beneficial where the music is a really severe test of bass delivery. And yes, a subwoof also helps in a more minor way to reduce distortion in upper frequencies. (Doppler distortion in panel speakers is real in theory and controversial in its actual importance.) Finally, my speakers are easier to drive than any OEM Sound Lab speaker all of which use an RC network in a passive crossover in conjunction with the bass and treble audio step up transformers. Having said all that, rest assured I do think about adding subwoofers once in a while, but if I did I would cross over at maybe 60 to 80Hz and use a very fast subwoofer that can blend with an ESL, not a behemoth. Meantime, since 80-90% if my listening is jazz, I do not feel deprived of bass.