Electrostats

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!

The above mentioned electrostats are very good. Electrostats are very unique and you will have lots of fun explaining them to most visitors to your home. i own a pair of Acoustat X self-powered electrostats and I like them very much.

I will be making some changes in the next year and I won't be buying speakers until I test some more electrostats.

I can testify that the Eros Mk 3 will play very loudly without strain, in fact for me they even tend to be rather easy on the ear. The bass is fantastic and so is the woofer to panel blend. The only real problem I have with them is if you aren't locked into the sweet spot they tend to sound just slightly dull, like if you are leaning back in the couch kinda slouching or even laying down, they will make you think they aren't so special. When you get right in the sweet spot then magic happens.

I got my pair in all silver, side rails and everything with the matching electronics. My wife too was not so keen on having a big system in the living room, but she really likes the looks of the Eros in Silver and most people who visit comment favorably on their appearance.

I have to assume that Roger Sanders has come a LONG way on E-stat design. I am quite familiar with his work and even have his book about "homebrew E-stat's", which is probably quite a bit out-dated. The fact that he is the one given credit for "inventing" the curved panel design and then threw all of that time and effort away for the flat panel design that he is currently marketing tells me that he is a pretty open minded individual. Most folks that would have had that much time and effort ( not to mention ego ) into such a thing would have a hard time laying that down and admitting that there are better methods out there. I'll have to check into these and see what i can find. Sean
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