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April 4, 2009 - 3:30pm
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Need more detailed information. Your "/" is going to open up a can of worms.
Electrostatic benefits:
1. Extremely low driver mass-leads to an effortless infinitely articulate sound. Plus significantly lower distortion.
2. The lack an enclosure-removes frequency defendant colorations. The lack of an enclosure also increases soundstaging width and depth.
3. The lack of a crossover in the midrange and high frequencies lead to an unprecedented transparency.
Electostatic drawbacks
1. Hard to drive-They increase the minimum cost of amplification vs. what one would have to spend to drive a comparably priced dynamic driver speaker.
2. They do not have NEARLY the macro dynamics of a dynamic driver speaker.
3. They don't have nearly the bass depth because of their lack of excursion.
Uh? This is entry level. Even I don't understand what you posted.
Sorry about the "/" thing ... probably best to leave the worms in their can:)
It was more of a curiosity question than anything else. It seems that every speaker web site I visit has the latest, greatest, laserphonic 9000-2B double deluxe lifelike speaker ever contrived by mankind, more than ready and able to be quad-amped and handle up to 5,000,000 watts of raw power producing enough dynamic bass to dislodge every window within a 10 mile radius and, of course, with unbelievable clarity. (sic)
A few of those web sites covered Electrostatic panels .. which, having never owned electrostats, gave rise to my question ... Why would you choose Electrostats over dynamic driver speakers?
Jeff
Have a listen for yourself and decide. You will note a very different presentation compared to conventional speakers which you may or may not prefer. For those of us who prefer stats there is generally no going back.
RG
I just wish Mr. Lowry would come back and translate his post into layman terms. It's an interesting post that probably requires more explanation on the terminology.
I'd be glad to elaborate:
Electrostatic benefits:
1. Extremely low driver mass-leads to an effortless infinitely articulate sound. Plus significantly lower distortion. Because the Mylar material is significantly lighter than the cones of a dynamic driver speaker it starts and stops much faster than does a traditional driver.
2. The lack an enclosure-removes frequency defendant colorations. The lack of an enclosure also increases soundstaging width and depth. The cones of a dynamic driver speaker are bolted to the box surrounding them so some of the sound is transferred to the cabinet of the speaker which begins to resonate with the driver but it's after the original music event so it tends to "muddy" or "smear" the sound.
3. The lack of a crossover in the midrange and high frequencies lead to an unprecedented transparency. A crossover divides the incoming musical signal into smaller sections and directs them to the appropriate drivers. This process can introduce phase distortion. Think of phase distortion as when two speaker drivers are supposed to be working together to reproduce a particular frequency (or sound) and one is moving in while the other is moving out. Because sound is made by moving air the opposite of the drives will cancel some of the air movement and hence the sound. Sound isn't necessarily in phase or out of phase many times it's a question of degrees. "0" being perfectly in phase while "180" is 100%out of phase.
Crossovers can also introduce changes to the frequency response too. Hence changing the tonality of the music.
Electostatic drawbacks
1. Hard to drive-They increase the minimum cost of amplification vs. what one would have to spend to drive a comparably priced dynamic driver speaker. Speakers are traditionally measured by putting 1 watt of power and measuring the speakers output in decibels 1 meter away. The differences in sensitivity may look small on paper but the db scale is laid out in such away that ever 3db requires twice the input power to achieve. So a difference in sensitivity of 6 or 9 db is huge and 12 would be enormous.
2. They do not have NEARLY the macro dynamics of a dynamic driver speaker. The difference between the softest and loudest sound that they are capable of making with the volume control set at a given position. Please see below and explanation for the major cause of the limitation
3. They don't have nearly the bass depth because of their lack of excursion. The way that a speaker makes more sound is to move more air. With a given speaker that's done by asking the drivers to move further in and out. An electrostatic panel has a much more limited range of motion than does a cone speaker. A dynamic speakers X-max (the difference between it's furthest back and furthest forward position) is often measured in inches whereas an Electrostatic is moving tiny fractions of an inch.
rgibran
We are in total agreement about stats. In 76 I heard a pair of Magnepan MG-1's in downtown Phila. I think the store was Barnett Bros. I walked in on my lunch break while they were unpacking their first demo pair. I didn't go back to work that day. That night I was listening to a pair of MG-1's. I replaced them 2 years later with MG-2's and 2 years after that a pair of MG3's. Bought my first ESL's in 83 and have ESL's now.
Jeff0000
After hearing the MG-1's box speakers never sounded right to me. You really have to hear panels to understand. While there are differences in the sound of different panel types (Planar Magnetic, Ribbon Electrostatic) they still sound like panels. You just have to listen for yourself.
Thank you, sir.
You are welcome Mr. Sanford.