What kind of power wakes up electrostatic speakers

Hey, Asa, you heard what you heard. I've never heard the new QUADs so no comment. I'm still glad I found the InnerSound for my 3.6s, though.

Scotty: I think Bear meant that one might want to do some research and find out who actually builds the amp for them i.e. Innersound does not build their own amp or preamp. As far as i know, it is built by Coda for them. On the same hand, Coda also builds the amps / preamps for Legacy too. Something about Coda and speaker manufacturers i guess....

Quadophile: While i don't know if the 606 is similar in design to some of the older Quad amps, the use of "current dumpers" helps the amp load in a more linear fashion to speakers with wild impedance curves. As such, the power transfer ( or "apparent volume" ) seems to be more consistent regardless of impedance or frequency. From what i've read about the 606, it appeared to be of similar design to what i'm talking about but with a "beefier" power supply.

Krell and other "brute" SS amps simply respond to the varying impedances at different frequencies in a more mechanized manner. It is possible for such an amp to be delivering BIG wattage at X frequency while only being able to muster a few watts at another frequency at any given time due to the impedance. As such, the output levels won't be as consistent due to the loading characteristics that the amp sees varying so much.

With an E-stat, it is not so much high current as it is high voltage over most of the range. Since tubes are more of a voltage amp, they tend to work pretty well. Only problem is, some E-stats drop in impedance, so they need a lot of current. Finding an amp that can deliver both high voltages AND high currents and do so at any given time and frequency with any level of reactance / impedance thrown at it would put you in "E-stat heaven" : ) In effect, you would have the effects of a tube amp that sees the constant impedance of an output transformer and the current of a BIG solid state amp as it needs it on demand. No simple trick and that is why some of these speakers are hard to find suitable amps for. Sean
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Van Alstine makes the 440hc to drive loads from 1 ohm, it uses 12 MOSFETS in the output stage rather than the 8 devices in the regular 440.

I have owned electrostats for around 12 years and found they all like lot's of power, they DONT do well with entry level high power amps. I have Martin Logan Ascents and driving them with two Classe 25 power amps in mono about 1000 watts per channel and sounds great. If you choose tube amps check out Audio Research, VTLboth sound very nice. GOOD LUCK

Travis, sorry so long to get back; forgot about this thread actually. Glad you are happy. Hey, lots of guys with Soundlabs seem to like the new Parasounds. Maybe you might like those too on the 3.6's? Just an idea down the road if you get the itch...