Electrostatic Speakers

i have owned sound lab ultimite 1s , a-3s pristines , dynastats, martin logan cls, quest and so on. stats especilly sound labs offer sound that whips most all high end cone speakers . they are transparent , they sound pure, and full, with gobs of depth. the drawbacks i noticed with soundlabs are macro dynamics are not quite the best. they were plenty loud for me though. they also take up alot of room. the panels can also rattle when pushed to hard. i could live with a-3s or u1s till the end of time though. i would think if you just sit back and enjoy your music then 75 tube watts should be enough. if you blast them then look at another speaker not any stats. good luck and let us know what you get.

I am a huge fan of ribbons and stats. I also love the cones. Most of the points made need not be repeated by me.

I have not heard a speaker that reproduces tonality better than the SoundLabs (some as good, but none better). I also personally know someone that is successfully driving the large SoundLabs with a pair of your OTL's.

If the music you listen to is Classical or Jazz, I do not think you can do better than the SoundLabs. The Piega's, which I sell, would be quite comparable and are easily driven by the 75 watt Tenor OTL's. The Maggie's might be questionable with your amps. If hard rock is more your cup of tea, and "air movement" is what you want, the Wilson's do a great job of that.

Duke: Great job!!!

has anyone tried 2 pairs of levinson ml2s(2per side strapped togeather) I think you may form a differeny opinion regarding the use of otls especially with soundlabs because the ML2 can handle any impedence out there without breaking a sweat

Bsevans -

The problem that a solid-state amplifier has driving the Sound Labs is related to the high impedance in the bass.

You see, the Sound Labs present a ballpark 40 ohm load in the deep bass, decreasing to around 6 ohms at 500 Hz, then going back up to maybe 15 ohms before gradually decreasing to 2 ohms or so at the very top end. (Before January 2002, that midrange impedance dip was down to around 3 ohms, rather than 6 ohms - which was much more of a challenge for OTL amplifiers. The reason for the two-hump impedance curve is Sound Labs use two transformers - one for the bass, and one for the high frequencies.)

I would guess that strapped Levinson ML2's do something like 100 watts into 8 ohms (not sure how the math works out), and double that into 4 ohms. But, what about into 40 ohms? Because solid state amplifiers act as a voltage source, the power delivered goes down as the impedance goes up. So into a 40-ohm load, a "100-watt amp" solid-state delivers about 20 watts, and clips way before you think it should. On the other hand, it will sound very good up until the point where clipping sets in.

Generally speaking, tube amps are better at delivering power into a high impedance load, so a high quality medium-powered tube amp has a better chance of driving the Sound Labs than a comparable solid-state amp.

Duke

I'm a fan of Apogee, the cheap treats. The only criticism I agree with above is the hidden amp cost. The speakers are so cheap, though, what does it matter?