Electrostatic speakers

I'm thinking of building a set of electrostatic speakers. I found a nice tutorial over here: http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~wradford/panel_construct.htm

  Quote

Results

 

Suprisingly, these things actually work! The construction procedure is awkward, and must be undertaken with some care in order to end up with a robust panel. Once this is acheived however, they can be hooked up to a high voltage souce and a step up transformer, and they will most likely work. An ESL sounds WAY different to conventional speakers, they are crisp, detailed, like a good pair of headphones. They are also VERY directional - it makes for good imaging but more importantly I think the sound goes straight to your ear, rather than with a wide dispersion conventional speaker where it goes straight to your ear and also to the walls and then to you ear, all the different reflections 'smearing' the sound.

 

Unfortunately they are not very strong with bass, so must be crossed over at about 500Hz to a conventional woofer.

 

I was amazed a messy panel of epoxy and plastic could sound so good!

Sounds good to me... I really need a decent pair of speakers without spending a lot of money, and I think this could be a cool project to do.

I haven't done much research into the subject yet though. Anyone have experience with this shit?

i dunno man... i took a audio engineering course last semester discussing speakers, and this type is harder to make (do to sound quality) and usually more expensive than regular speakers. also, shouldn't it be crossed-over lower (like somewhere fro 50-120)....it would be a fun project just to see if you can get it to work....

yeah I figured the price/quality ratio would be better then regular homemade speakers.. I'll have to look into this.

Good luck building these, I wouldn't like to try, though once you get the panels and electronics sorted, at least you don't have to design and build an elaborate ported box.

I run a pair of hybrid electrostatics in my studio, Crown ES-212 - they cross over to the bass boxes at 350Hz, which go all the way down to 23Hz or so. While the bass drivers (4 x 10") could do with updating to a modern design (the speakers are from the early to mid 70's), the midrange and HF are absolutely addictive and fatigue-free. You don't really notice how boxy and closed regular dynamic speakers are until you hear some electrostatics in action - I could never go back. As well as being great for electronic music (they put out the sharp edge of synth waveforms so well..) they present an amazingly clear acoustic sound too.

Power handling shouldn't be too much of a concern with a hybrid design - I can easily hammer both my amplifier (200WRMS) and my ears into submission and the Crowns comfortably handle it. they have overload protection circuitry (a big red light bulb comes on) but I haven't been able to reach the point where this comes in - I'd have to leave the room first.

www.audiocircuit.com is a good place to find info on old and new designs, as well as servicing info, DIY projects and kits.

Hey thanks for the link. How much did you pay for your set? It's not really a small budget thing to even build them eh?

£350, Buy-It-Now on ebay, and they were in first-rate condition. Cost £120 to ship from London, in 6 huge boxes.

Not bad at all! But how about the price if you want to build one?