Best match electrostats for Jadis JA-30

I recently reread an old Stereophile where Dick Olsher reviewed the JA-30s and felt they were made for the Quads, particularly if you don't need to listen at high spls. I'd give them a try if this matches your listening tastes.

Here's a good link with more links: http://www.amasci.com/esloud/eslhwto.html

Tubes are really only best with electrostats once the transformers are removed. I.e. no impedence matching transformer on the panels and no transformer on the tube amp. This does mean the amp has to be optimized for the panels. But that's the best and most cost effective way to do it. I wouldn't rip up your JA-30, but for aftermarket amps with aftermarket speakers its alot tougher to get it great. I think the old acoustats were designed like that.

I am aware of the Quads(I heard a used pair at a friends) and thought thier highs were faint, thier mids were amazing and bass I could live with. After all I have two Valodyne 12" subs to add as much bass as I need. What about a panel of ribbons, Aogee,Magnepan,Carver? Again thanks for the inputs, this is very helpful in narrowing my options.

I think you're likely to be disappointed with any of those ribbons, as my experience in listening to them at friends' and at dealers (we're talking Apogees and Maggies) has been that they need lots of power to come alive (the joke was Carver designed his huge Silver 7 tube amps so he'd have something able to drive his speakers). An exception might be the smaller Maggies (1.6 and below), although I've only heard them with solid state amps of 100+ watts so couldn't tell you for sure. Nice thing about the JA-30s is that they're relatively portable, maybe you could take them to a Maggie dealer or to someone who owns the Apogees and Carvers to find out in person. There are Apogee and Maggie user groups on the web, I understand, maybe you could check those sites to see if anyone has tried your amps on those speakers. Good luck--those are great amps (with a lot better bass than you'd expect), I wouldn't give up on them.

Rcprince is right, they are wonderful amps. Maggies and Apos are more power hungry than one might think. They need power to make them shine, ALSO the SMALLER Maggies! The highs on the Quads are better than one might think, though the sweet spot is perhaps small, if you talk the old ESLs. It depends on the speaker cables to some extent. Cheers,