That is sad vtaoustatx. My first ESLs were oak Acoustat Xs with black grill cloth. They certainly opened up a whole new world for me. They were also beautifully made except for that stupid fiber board rear panel which I threw away.
You really don't need a very big room for them. I used them in an efficiency apartment! Maybe you could convert one of the bedrooms:)
Let me know when you want to sell them!!
Mike |
jd57, you learn something every day. The last time I saw ML-2s was around 1979. There were 6 of them driving the HQD system. That store supplied me with components for my clients 10% off and my own stuff at salesman's comp. Anyway, the HQD system was a nightmare and not many were sold. It was not because of the amps but Quads and Decca ribbons blew all over the place. They sounded great and people tended to crank things beyond the power handling capability of the speakers. The only other dependable components were the Hartleys. Very few people had a room big enough for them. |
select-hifi, the tiles are dirt cheap. They are very light. Just one drop of high viscosity cyano acrylate glue at each corner will hold them up. If you put them up alternating the direction of the fins they look pretty cool. Lay things out carefully before you get started. I used a plumb line to make sure I got everything straight. Please let us know how it goes.
Mike |
faxer, those look like someone from Apogee decided to start his own company. The construction is very similar. select hifi, If you have not already put some acoustic foam tiles on the wall directly behind the panels. I would think 2 wide and 3 high. They are 12" tiles. This will cut the reflection of frequencies above 250 Hz and usually improves the image quite a bit. There is no reason that they should not image as well as the Apogees. You would think better as there is no crossover.
https://www.parts-express.com/sonic-barrier-fwp122-studio-acoustic-foam-wedge-panel-12-x-12-x-2-black-12-pack--260-547jdl57 driving those with ML-2s is brilliant. Those are some of the best sounding amps ever made. John Curl designed them, they are straight class A and the shoot way above their power rating. Some people think they switch to AB and keep going but Mark Levinson himself denied it. I think the question should have gone to Mr Curl. That fact that they are going after all these years speaks highly of their construction quality. |
Atom, Those would be 4+4s. BIG speakers. Two subwoofers are not going to be near enough. I use 4 subs with 2+2s. You should put two inside and two outside the Stats preferably against walls. Cross over 100 to 125 Hz. As I said in the post above I will be getting SoundLabs 845s in the hopefully near future. They are the same size as your 4+4s and I plan on using an eight 12" driver array with them. Assuming they are in a room with eight foot ceilings you have full range line source loudspeakers and you are trying to use them with point source woofers which simply can not project power as well. If they sound right at one volume as soon as you turn it up higher the stats will just overwhelm the woofers. If you message me I can send you a picture of what I have in mind.
Mike |
bdp24, even with neodymium magnets the field strength drops of very quickly. You can increase the magnets deeper front to back but the you start to make the ribbon beam and cause diffraction effects plus the magnets, even the Chinese ones get prohibitively expensive. This may be why the Divas were everybody's favorites and when the humidity was right (joking) they were wonderful and I did live with them for almost a decade but they were fragile, volume limited and lacking in deep bass whereas the 2+2s I have now are indestructible, go loud as h-ll but are still deep bass challenged. After year/decades of piddling around I finally figured out a way to put subwoofers under them but I would never have been able to do it without digital bass management and it would have taken a lot longer without the system I have which allows me to change both high and low pass filters independently on the fly from my seat with a laptop. I have not changed the configuration now for somewhere around five years which for me is a very long Time. The Soundlabs, because they are so wide will produce very deep bass and I believe most people use them without subwoofers but because they are one-way speakers the entire frequency range is doppler effected by the long excursions deep bass takes. My long experience with ESLs of various configurations tells me that removing the low bass from them will increase clarity, banish any volume compression and add perhaps 10dB of headroom. But it will take a lot of subwoofers to make it work. The 845 is a very big loudspeaker. The plan right now is to use eight 12" Morel drivers in four sealed decagonal enclosures made of 2" thick MDF. Nice Winter project (after I finish the kitchen or somebody we know is going to be in big trouble.) |
barbecue with it. It is very fragile compared to other materials but nothing else works as well as aluminum. I tried making a titanium ribbon speaker with titanium foil and neodymium magnets. It worked great until the ribbon started to get warm (higher resistance than aluminum) then it expanded and started flapping and waving all over the place. So much for that experiment. Anyway, the Magnepan tweeter is much more durable that the Diva tweeter was but Magnepan tweeters are blown all the time. Fortunately, Magnepan supports their speakers well. |
bdp24- you are absolutely correct. The rest of the speaker is planar magnetic. You can not make true ribbons very wide. Magnetic energy drops off at the square of the distance so you can not spread the magnetism much of a distance. The Diva Mid range which was a true ribbon was a little over an inch wide and that was pushing it.The woofer was planar magnetic. It is also the reason the Maggie tweeter is a bit fragile. The ribbon runs in a "U" shaped extrusion with slots cut in it. Magnets are glued to the sides of the "U" The ribbon is tacked down every other magnet alternating sides with a little glob of blue something or other. The ribbon is aluminum foil laminated to a very thin layer of plastic. Most of you have played with aluminum foil. It bends easily and if you go too far it will crease. If you keep bending it back and forth it will work harden and break. It will break if it gets overheated which you may have seen if you barbeque |
richopp, I am very fond of Magneplanar speakers. I have owned two different models including Tympany 3's and have set them up for at least 6 clients/friends. They are a fabulous speaker for the money and they are relatively easy to set up if you have experience. I also owned Apogee Divas for almost a decade. However, none of the magnetic planars can come close to a full range ESL set up and driven properly. Full range ESLs have to be big and tall, at least 7"10". Only Soundlabs makes a speaker this way now. Smaller versions are OK but will not have the dynamic presence of full sized ones. Acoustat was the first to do it this way. unfortunately, they did not survive. The Soundlabs speaker is significantly better made than Acoustats however both speakers are the most indestructible loudspeakers ever made. You have to drive a stake through them to do any damage. My 2+2s are 39 years old, look and perform as if brand new. Unfortunately, this is not true of Magnepans. The tweeter is the best sounding magnetic tweeter made but it is fragile which is why Magnepan has a great tweeter replacement program. I have used it twice. The rest of the speaker is indestructible. Magnepans require crossovers full range ESLs do not until you get down to the subwoofer. The sound you get is unified in a way no other speaker can match. Add subwoofers and everything goes to a whole new level. Maggies can be improved my subs but the effect is not as dramatic as it is on a full range ESL. I say full range so as not to be confused with hybrids like MLs and Sanders versions. An ESL will sound like whatever you put into it. Whether or not a speaker is bright depends on how they are set up, the recording and the playback volume. |
Jim, your Rouge integrated amp will have no trouble driving 645s to a reasonable level probably louder than the Maggies. However the 3.7i is an incredible speaker for the money. It is purely a financial decision. Either speaker will benefit from subwoofers down the road. |
Atom, Nice going. Before the Spectra Days Acoustat did make a speaker called the 4+4. It was a 4 panel wide 2+2 and boy did they rock. I probably would have bought a pair if I could have afforded them then.
They had two interfaces so you had to use two channels of amplification on each side. I assume you did 4 panels up and 4 panels down so the speakers are 8 feet tall? I'm sure they do bass fine however I would still use subwoofers as they drop doppler distortion and the panels become even more clear and pristine sounding. |
noodlyarm, those are very pretty ESLs. Do they have curved panels like ML or are they segmented panels like Acoustats. Also how tall are they?
They are very tall but I can't tell from the pictures I have seen.
Mike |
jperel9, all you have to do is remove any grill cloth, take a heat gun and wave it over the diaphragm at a distance of 6 inches. You will actually see the mylar tighten up! But BIG WARNING do not stop waving and leave the gun pointed at one spot. You will melt the Mylar. Mylar does not get old. It has a half life of 50,000 years. You can heat it over and over again.
The loosening is happening because Audiostatic did not adequately pre stretch the mylar. All ESLs loosen a bit (break in) but usually not enough to cause trouble if the mylar was stretched tight to begin with. |
rsf507, I think they are up to $147K/pr. Makes a big difference. Willieva, the Muraudios are a very attractive loudspeaker and given the great reviews I would love to hear them. The only thing that worries me is the speaker crosses down to dynamic drivers at 750 Hz which takes a large chunk of midrange away from the ES panels which is where ESLs excel.
But, if size were an issue they could be an excellent option. They do not go very low so subwoofers would be mandatory. Another issue with them it that they are line source for high frequencies and point source below.
This means the frequency response will change as you move away from the speaker. The high frequencies will become more prominent.
vittles, nice system. Can you give me an idea of how the Atma-Sphere amps sound vs the Pass amps?
bdp24, take it easy on me. I'm just a senile old man. |
kgveteran, get yourself an Atma-Sphere MA-3 |
Well audiokinesis we have something in common. I do not have my 845s yet but they are for certain my next and probably last loudspeaker.
douglas_schroeder, what did you think of the 545s? I'm not sure but I do not think we can get KingSound speakers in the US. I went to their web site which is a bit crude. Their speakers are listed as having cross overs at various frequencies usually 1200 Hz. Not sure what the reasoning behind that would be.
Willieva, you bet. The 4s had the best bass because they had the largest baffle area. The 2+2s are narrow with very little baffle effect. They don't really rock until you use them with subwoofers. I used subwoofers with Monitor 4s. I took them off those cheesy plastic stands and plopped them down on RH Labs subs and boy did that rock. Those Stasis Amps were something back then.
bdp24, it looked to me like you were saying the ET was an ESL. I do think ribbon tweeters are the best made primarily because of their very even figure 8 dispersion characteristic. ESLs beam which causes the manufacturers to do all sorts of crazy thing like making you sit in one chair to curving the panels making them non linear. I do think Acoustat and Soundlabs have the best solution by angling narrow flat panels to cover a wider area. The Acoustat 4+4 and the Soundlabs 845 are very similar speakers the Soundlabs being more modern is certainly more sophisticated |
Oh and BDP24 you are right that the ET speaker is a planar magnetic but the Sanders is a real ESL with a dynamic woofer below I think 175 Hz.
Esls are faster than planar magnetics and the panel is driven more evenly
Built correctly it is impossible to strike the stators with the diaphragm.
Withing its envelope the Sanders is a great speaker but I would rather have the SoundLabs 545 with subwoofers running below 100 Hz. |
bdp24, Martin Logans and Soundlabs speaker have wonderful high frequency dispersion characteristics. The larger multi panel Acoustats did also. 2+2s not so hot. If you use the speakers with subwoofers you can keep them as close to the wall as 2 feet. In any case you want to dampen the wall directly behind the speaker as it is the strongest primary reflection. With single panel speakers like the Sanders the high frequencies drop of fast off axis which heightens the sensation of a tight sweet spot but frankly even SoundLabs and Acoustats have a "tight" sweet spots. Because there is no midrange or high frequency cross over and the the entire spectrum (except the low bass with sub woofers) is coming from the same spot in space these speakers "image" the sweet spot and everything else much better than other speakers. In other words, the sweet spot is much easier to hear and when you are in it the image is holographic. This is always fun but in many cases not an advantage. It is highly unlikely that the engineer mixing the master was listening to speakers like these. You are more likely to hear what the engineer was hearing with dynamic speakers. With my Acoustats the image is frequently surrealistic. Like the drum set being wider than the whole band. Each piece is imaged in space perfectly except the floor toms are 20 feet away from the high hat. I've never seen a drummer with 10 foot arms. Live performances especially classical ones are usually right on as are older Jazz recordings. |
rodman99999, I was down in Miami back then where were you and what was the name of your shop? |
I currently use Acoustat 2+2s a speaker that shocked everyone at the time. Nobody else had ever built a full range line source speaker before and the increase in dynamics was unexpected. ESLs are supposed to be polite. Not the 2+2s. Put them with a subwoofer array and they will play at rediculous volumes and do stuff like rim shots better than horn speakers.
If the panels are kept in the frames and the socks are not removed the panels are indestructible and will last forever. If you can find a pair that have not been mutilated go for em. The current speaker that better than fills their shoes is the SoundLabs 845. |
