Electrostatic Speakers Vs. Horn/component Tweeter


I’m curious… when a horn or tweeter goes bad, it’s clearly obvious.  The driver is shot and the audio sounds clipped and distorted.  Electrostatic however, have massive surface areas and use static electricity to vibrate the material…. So when an electrostatic speaker goes bad, what actually happens to cause it to go bad, and does it go bad like a tweeter, where it goes from sounding fine to sounding like crap in a split second?  Or will an electrostatic speaker slowly decay over time, so you don’t notice it initially, and then one day, it just doesn’t sound as good as you remember it sounding?  If an electrostatic speaker goes bad, what causes it?  Is it torn material?  Is it something where you can replace a single small part?  Or do you typically have to replace the entire panel?

I’ve come across plenty of blown regular speakers in my life, but never a blown (if that’s even possible) electrostatic speaker.

maverick3n1

Showing 1 response by atmasphere

My receiver won’t utilize the subwoofer if the main speakers are set to stereo mode and large speakers. Setting them to small, tells the receiver to use the sub for low frequencies and thus reduces the draw from the speakers. My receiver is biamping the speakers at 150w per channel x2 per speaker, but it’s only 8ohm stable. It can do 6ohm above 1k frequency. I think these speakers can pull as low as 2ohm, so it’s just too much for the receiver to handle. This is why I need to eventually get a new amp when I can afford it.

@maverick3n1 The 1 Ohm impedance occurs at 20KHz where there is hardly any musical energy so your receiver will be fine. The speaker is higher impedance where there is more music energy, such as in the bass region.

When ESLs fail they have several symptoms. One is low volume which can be caused by a power supply failure. Buzzing and flapping is another due to tears in the diaphragm. Arcing (which might sound like a loud background hiss or actual sparking) is caused by too much power or excessive exposure to dust and moisture (possibly in the form of humidity); once that happens the panel can continue to arc, leading to failure of the membrane. They can degrade slowly or quite quickly depending on how they are treated. An underpowered receiver won’t be able to damage the speaker.