midrange forwardness

Hi Dazzdax,

I haven't personally heard the Soundlabs or the Gruensch amps, but most electrostatic speakers have an inverse relationship between impedance and frequency or at least they rise in the bass and likely drop in the treble. If the Gruensch is a SS amp, it's possible your bass and lower midrange would be leaner while the highs more pronounced. If the Gruensch is typical tube amp, disregard what I just wrote.

Good luck,

Jordan

DazzDax,

The reason why many solid state amps may not sound right with the rising impedance in the low end on SoundLabs is that SS amps typically double in power with a halving of impedance. This also works in the other direction...they halve their power when the impedance is doubled. Tube amps tend to perform much better into a rising impedance...they typically either hold the power constant or increase power slightly into higher impedances.

You are right that SS amps do much better than tube amps into low impedances (particularly at low frequencies), but the SoundLabs have a rising impedance in the low end and most SS amps will put out less power into the low end than the rest of the frequency range. This can make the lower midrange sound anemic.

May be something to think about. Many people have found tube amps sound significantly better with the right speaker...I think the Soundlabs qualify as being a "right" speaker for tube amps. I'm sure they can sound wonderful with the right SS amp too, but I'd bet that a SS amp that sounds wonderful with this speaker is harder to find than a tube amp that sounds wonderful with this speaker.

Good luck,

Jordan