Electrostats

Sean,

You're talking a lot of theory and generalities, which says to me that you don't have specific experience with the InnerSound Eros Mk-III that Driver raved about above.

So just FYI, the Eros can play VERY LOUD without strain (I'm sure it's pretty clean up to 115 dB or so). Roger Sanders tests the panels by playing them for extended periods of time at SPLs exceeding 100 dB for an individual panel. And the panels produce about 98 dB at one watt, so they are robust AND efficient. The can reproduce kilowatt peaks without stretching the mylar or melting. So, yeah, they pretty much can reproduce a symphony orchestra playing full tilt in mid- and large-size rooms; and I've heard them do it.

Yes, they are beamy (very!), and it seems that the bass and the mids and highs blend properly at only one distance from the speakers and that is because the ESL line source maintains its loudness further out from its diaphragm than the point source woofer which falls off in dBs more rapidly as the distance to the listener increases.

I owned a set of the Mk-IIs, which are similar, and was sorry to let them go due to a move across country. Sean, if the ESLs you are trying to build perform half as good as the Eros, then I'd say you are doing well.

Now, for the first time in years, I'm using a dynamic speaker as my reference -- the Audio Physic Virgo II. My new room is smaller than my previous basement listening room and the Virgos seem to fit and work well in the smaller space. I still miss some of the dynamics and scale that the Eros presented so well, but the Virgos are not too far off the mark and are endearing in other ways. Certainly they have a larger sweet spot. I use them with a subwoofer, just as I had done with the Eros and that seems to fill in the last half octave of very low bass nicely.

Perhaps one day I'll return to E-stats, but from what I understand, the ultra-low humidity here in AZ is not the best environment for ESL panels.

Driver, if you can deal with the Eros' narrow sweet spot then they may be just the speaker for you.

Hey Plato, I get enough grief from the wife about the VR4 GenIII's which grace her living room & I think with the Eros she would make life difficult for me, although her main complaint is they're black. Maybe I could sneak a pair in & she would only notice the black ones were gone?

Yes they are, and so are ribbons. The problem is not so much in the type of music...but the quality of the recordings. A great deal of rock recordings were recorded (lots of compression) to sound loud only. These types of speakers are not forgiving of poor recording quality, they will sound very, very good with rock recordings of high quality. The other problem is that most rock music has a foundation which is built on bass, cost of full range e-stats or ribbons can be high and a good sub that will blend with them is also a cost. If cost is of no matter to you and most of your rock is of higher quality recordings...you should be very happy. IMHO

Dave

i owned the sound lab U1s and ml prodigys, and the list goes on. if i liked to rock and roll then i would not buy stats. i agree with sean in hybrids never seem to blend. the the U1s give plenty of volume and bass but macro dynamics never seemed to sound right. with most other music including big dynamic classical the big stats are very hard to beat. the big stats are only for the person who does not care about space. they would certinly be on my short list. i finally picked up the nova utopias. they have stats beat on almost every level. the big labs still have spooky midrange.

Driver, I think the Eros is coming in some other finishes now besides the black, which could be the key to sneaking them past your wife. However, they are on the large side and as such would be hard to conceal.

I've taken my system to a spare bedroom because even though the living room is larger and has terrific acoustics my wife is just too critical of how things look in the LR. God forbid someone were to pay a visit and be forced to see unsightly speaker cables or interconnects -- and those outboard power supplies, just hideous!

So rather than having to pass her continual scrutiny I confine my gear to a somewhat smaller room where I can pretty much do what I like and not be concerned about how tidy things look or don't look. Women!

That said, I'm still going to try to slowly sneak some decent gear into our modest living room system... My wife likes the look of my Michell Gyro SE and luckily there is some really gorgeous equipment available. But I may need to find a nice remote controlled integrated amp and stick with the one-box CD player (got to minimize the number of boxes and the associated wiring)... ;)

Best of Luck to you!