Sound Lab vs Magnepan 20.7

Stringreen, The newer SL ESLs are not only more reliable, they are also a lot easier to drive and sound better at the same time. They appear to have wider bandwidth and higher efficiency than the Maggies do, whereas a few years ago I would have said the 20.7s were more efficient.

Put another way, most of our MA-2 amplifiers produced used to go to Sound Lab owners. Nowadays you can do with a set of MA-1s what used to take a set of MA-2s... That is a nice improvement!

I do think though that the 20.7 is one of the better deals in loudspeakers...

Clio09, you should know by now that getting rid of the transformer gets you greater transparency :)

However direct-driving ESLs has its own set of problems- chief amongst them is how the amplifier can be safely connected to the speaker such that it does not represent a danger to the user. This usually means the amp is built into the speaker, and *that* usually means if you want to upgrade to a better speaker or more powerful amp, you have to start over...

Acoustat actually made a powered direct-drive ESL. They had to integrate the amp into the speaker on account of the rather dangerous high voltages involved.

This will be the case with any direct-drive installation. Of course, any ESL can be direct-driven if you are willing to do the surgery. So it would be possible to do that with a Sound Lab. But with the voltages involved to bias the speaker, the amp would have some very high operating voltages which would make it a challenging amplifier to build and operate.