Electrostatic speakers and low volume resolution

ZD, thanks for the clarification and I DO remember your advice/suggestions regarding the use of an equalizer as a potential solution so your response was a little confusing. On the same subject, I don't remember if I thanked you for that but I'm doing it now; addition of the equalizer has been one of the best single things I've done. I don't always have it on but when it's needed, I don't see another way that I could've had the same success addressing my personal issues.

I'll do as you suggest here and try some of these adjustments, as counter intuitive as they may seem

Whart, I've used Martin Logan electrostats for about 35 years now (SL3, Prodigy, CLS2, Odyssey, Ethos and a center channel which I don't remember the model of) with all kinds of decent ancillary gear so am no stranger to their unique demands. In so many ways I like, or have at least become habituated to, their sound so I'm not likely to give them up. I agree with several of your comments but, even though I recognize the possibility, I'm not convinced that their efficiency is the problem.

Hi Broadstone, There's a thread on the Marin Logan Owners website that has the title," i tried 34 amps in 12 months with the Montis, My review is here."

In this thread the OP makes the following statement:

"This brings me to the mark levinsons h series (532h and 533h to be specific). They are THE ONLY amplifier that i can listen to at low volumes and HEAR everything and each detail. It doesn't lose a thing even at low volume. I have never experienced this before."

You might want to check out the thread. The guy is still trying different amps so you might want to talk to him.

Thank you for pointing this out. Right now I'm waiting for final membership verification from MLO and will read his post later on when I'm back home. Based on what I've read, the Mark Levinson amps are certainly very capable and I assume that his observations are valid and would transfer to my speakers. However, the models mentioned are a little out of my financial comfort zone right now especially since I just bought the new speakers and have no way of auditioning these amps in my home first.

A super tweeter is one that operates at about 10KHz and above. A regular tweeter might only roll in at about 2KHz or so.

"Now that I'm using the equalizer (Behringer DEQ2496), between automatic room balancing and frequency adjustment to compensate for age related hearing loss, I'm able to get back much of what I've lost. If I had discovered the EQ approach years ago I could have saved significant time and money in this quest. I tried, as I said previously, to use the EQ as a sort of loudness control for low volume listening but it hasn't really worked that well so far. That being the case, I still want to try the autoformer approach and will as soon as my checkbook recovers from purchase the new speakers.
Broadstone (Threads | Answers | This Thread)"

I was just reading through your comments again and have a question. You say that the EQ helps but its not a complete fix. What are you lacking? What is it that needs to be corrected to get the sound you need?

Also, I have something for you to try, if you haven't already done so. I'm sure you recall some of the posts where people feel that there's usually a sweet spot to where an amp will sound its best. For the most part, I would agree. You can control the overall gain with your EQ, in addition to the individual EQ bands. If you raise and lower the overall gain with the EQ, you can vary how hard your amp is working, while keeping the SAME volume level. With some experimenting, you should be able to identify your amps sweet spot.