Electrostatic speakers and low volume resolution

This has been very interesting to read.

Hi Atmashphere, Electrostats that are not direct driven already have a transformer to step up the voltage built in. Would it not be better to replace the transformer in the speaker with one that raises the impedance, than to add a set of Zero's?

"04-09-15: Broadstone
I've become a strong believer in the part that all frequencies play in such important factors as timbre, even, or maybe especially, those beyond our sensory capabilities. As was discussed earlier, the base frequencey of most any instrument or voice falls within even my upper audible range of about 8-9000Hz. Their associated and critical upper harmonics, though, will far exceed these values. "

I'm not sure if they still make it, but Whest came out with a component to do exactly what you are talking about. It goes in between a CD player and the preamp. CD stops at 20k, and this component tries to reconstruct the high frequency waveforms above and beyond what you can hear. Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to hear it for myself, so I can't say if it works or not. But It does seem like a good idea.

Atmasphere, yes, the fact that piezos don't need a crossover as well as the fact that I've used them with some success many years ago is what makes me comfortable with their use. I still have this nagging question, though, regarding their being seen by the signal as a parallel installed capacitor. If that's a valid observation and the HF signal to the transducer is reduced by that capacitance, I suppose the piezo would be producing those frequencies at and above those that were lost through its addition. I also agree that some attenuation might be needed; when I used them before, they were a bit conspicuous.

Geoffkait, I've been reading about the Golden Ear Ultra (I assume this is what you're referring to) and, so far am leaning in that direction. I've already begun looking for one.

ZD, thanks for the "whest" idea but I'm going to stick to end of the stream experiments for now. Going back to your discussion regarding use of the EQ to force the amp to work more within its sweet spot, I haven't tried that yet but I have a related question. To get an idea of how this concept might work, would introducing resistance in the speaker cable achieve the same thing? It seems that, in either case, one is forcing the amp to see an increased load.

Geoffkait, I meant to say "Golden Sound". I've done more reading though, and it seems that they are capable of reproducing only extreme high frequencies (and I doubt gigahertz claim), ignoring those important HF harmonics closer to the upper audible limits. This is only my gut assumption and I could be way off base but I'd be more comfortable with something like the Townshend which starts at 15k Hz and goes up from there; its price, though, is a little hard to take. I'm still studying the subject but I also wonder what the HF limits of the rest of the system are. Are any of my components capable of producing or passing through a 40KHz signal. As an experiment I may buy a pair of piezos as a cheap starting point before I invest in one of the way more expensive ones.