My observations over the years has led me to believe that you either are a stat/planar lover or a cone lover.
Sometimes people shift sides over the years,for whatever reasons, but I have known more folks to stay in the planar/stat side of the speaker family once they've been exposed to a good set of planars/stats with proper amps SS or tube.
One of my friends bought back his old MonitorX stats after a decade or more of bouncing from one cone to the next.
Stats/planars have a certain sound and room interface that cones do not and cones can interact with a room in ways that planars cannot.
Our ears are the final arbitrator of what appeals to what we settle for,and neither speaker type is the best.
Nothing in audio is the best, there will always be something that was better or will be better or that can be made to be better than what we now consider the best.
So for me, what type of amp is best for an electrostat is something that only my ears can tell me.
It could be either, depends on the speaker and the rest of the gear, and the type of sound that I have groomed my ears to accept as pleasurable.
But my ears aren't the same as everyonelse, and what I consider good may sound like crap to someonelse.
We develope, over time and exposure to great sounding systems(seek them out and educate your ears)a sort of appetite for certain things.
Like going to restaurant.Somethings on the menu are appealing while other things are not.
I am not a sea food lover, but I know a lot of my friends are.
Some folks like cone speakers, some like stats or planars.
There also seems to be cookbook like recipes from audio gourmets who preach that cones like powerfull solid state amps that control the woofers with a high damping factor.
While some audiophiles drive 15 inch woofers with 2 watt SET and are quite happy with the results.
Lots of options on the menu, try them all until you find the ones that fit where you are NOW at this stage of your audio journey.
I've been thru several stages.
Each one was a place I could have stopped at, yet each was different from the one before and after it.
Did this make me a tortured lost soul, we so often read about?
You know the fellow who has to get off the merry go round, the fellow who has to downsize, the fellow who has found that this hobby is nothing but a sham and full of shills and snake oil, the fellow who believes that nothing good has been made in the last 40 years and that somewhere something went wrong and we lost our way, and nothing will get his mojo workin.
Nope.
That's not me.
I've found that there's so much good stuff out there, new and old, that putting together a system today that sounds great to my ears, is easier than it's ever been.
In spite of all the hand wringing we read about,you can mismatch an amp with a pair of speakers and be perfectly happy with the results.
I know a lot of folks who have done that.
And I have friends who are tortured souls,
They like the sound of that tube amp on their stats, but because someone says it's not politically correct, they have a change of heart,and set about looking for a solid state amp to correct the error of their ways.
But then the torture sets in because they like the sound of tubes,so on and on it goes.
A state of constant flux is a good thing.
Searching for that elusive absolute sound,in whatever way you want to define it, can be a fun thing or a totally frustrating one.
It depends a lot on your frame of mind.
Some folks constantly torture themselves flitting from one thing to the next searching for a nirvana that only exits in their mind or the mind of the audio guru of the day..Made ever so hard to achieve because one never knows what nirvana sounds like.It's always changing.
The reviewers are always finding something new that's the best.
When you accept that nothing is perfect it's just a state of mind, you can start to accept the flaws that all speakers and gear in this hobby have and learn to live with them.
I have learned to live with and accept the flaws in my stats and with the gear that drives them.
The positive things that I like about my sound out-weight the negatives.
I have heard better,but at far greater expense,and with flaws of their own.
So I've learned that nothing is perfect at any price point.
The fun thing for me is to find things that will make what I have sound even better, so I have gotten off the speaker, amp merry go round and stopped swapping components.
I've assembled some decent pieces and they work together.
I've heard some of those mega buck systems, and some are very good,but if money was no object, I couldn't decide on what I would buy.
They all sound great, and different at the same time. So which one is the best? The one to end with? At some point you have to settle for what you have and start to appreciate it flaws and all.
We can split hairs for the rest of this century about what is the best amplification for stats, or if Maggies are better than stats or if Apogees are the best etc.
In the end it doesn't matter,there will always be something better.And someone to tell you so.
So move on to it or tweak what you have to a place that you are happy with.
