What is the best planar or electrostatic speaker?


Hi All

I just wanted everyone to know that the new Flagship State of the Art BG Radia FS 880 Planar dipole speakers will be arriving soon in my listening room.

My 2 friends who are engineers and speaker builders helped build the prototypes which were the BG Radia LA 800's (in wall design) which were modified as dipoles. The system was tri - amped using the Pass Labs XVR1 Electronic crossover with goldpoint attenuators.

I sold them to make way for the new FS 880 model which looks different than the 800 protos. But does still have a total of 12 Neo 10's mids, 32 Neo 3 tweeters but differs vfrom the protos in that they have 4 woofers per side with the included 1200 watt amps.

Please check out Dr. Sakakini's You Tube video key words:

BG Radia Dipole 800/FS880 prototypes
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They are a planar magnetic design.
I posted this to get other opinions or to find out if other members agree with what I posted.
I've not heard them. But to answer your question, in my opinion, if you want to produce music in your home, the Quad ESL57, are not only the best planar or electrostatic speaker, but the best speaker, period.
In my biased opinion, without a doubt, SoundLab electrostatic speakers, particularly the U-1PX. And I have heard them all.
The new BG could be very nice; I have heard others similar and there is an appealing sound to them. What's the MSRP?

Danny Richie is involved in some interesting planar hybrids. The smaller multiple driver designs are improving the magnetic planar sound imo, but I'm not convinced it has unseated ESL in several performance parameters including cleanness, coherency. I thought magnetic planar technology was dead until they started coming out with the smaller drivers, which I feel will save this type of speaker going forward.

King Sound King III (which I reviewed for Dagogo.com and own) is still my current favorite for panel sound at the price point, now $14K.

I consider the older Quad to be a vintage selection, not able to perform on a par with newer designs.

01-04-14: Douglas_schroeder
The new BG could be very nice; I have heard others similar and there is an appealing sound to them. What's the MSRP?

$35K.