ESL question ( not a troll )

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You need to research a little about the term "Constant Directivity". That is not a term made up by engineers ;)

Beaming matters unless you have zero reflections, its going to matter. I guess you are just use to it.

I don't think you are following my argument closely.

Constant directivity would be fine if you had a constant reflection room. Otherwise, getting back to the real world, you need to set it up right.

Is there some kind of good feature in a speaker called "constant directivity"?

If you follow the arguments of the ESL adherents apropos frequency response, there is a kind of "predictable" or "orderly" directivity which is good and "ragged directivity" or "anomalous directivity" which is bad. If you have the good kind, it is easier to set up your reproduction system.

Yes, I think "constant" directivity is better than "ragged" directivity. Returning to beaming, orderly beaming is about as manageable in the real world as a theoretical speaker with constant directivity. Yes. beaming matters in real rooms, but using a "constant directivity" speaker can't change the speaker/room interaction for the better if the room is ragged.

Footnote: funny thing, nobody has mentioned bass which has no directivity, whether we prefer constant or orderly.
 
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I do not buy your arguement that you need constant reflection in a room to take advantage of constant directivity (If that is what you are implying).

Constant directivity speakers just sound better in any and every room period. Once you experience properly designed speakers you never go back to anything that beams or has poor off axis response and I do not live in world that has an "audiophile" sweet spot either since "Sweet spot" was always an excuse for poorly designed speakers.

Anyways, ESL designs are okay for some people. For me, (Geddes posted this already) but they lack dynamics (limited SPL), they have too much distortion (during content peaks > 20dB), They have a bad off axis response and they definitely are not easy to DIY.
 
Anyways, ESL designs are okay for some people. For me, (Geddes posted this already) but they lack dynamics (limited SPL), they have too much distortion (during content peaks > 20dB), They have a bad off axis response and they definitely are not easy to DIY.

I can't say that I have listened with any great attention to detail, but Martin Logan seems to have an excellent following and reviews for their ESLs.

I think that getting truly great performance is hard to do, perhaps harder than using standard drivers, but it would seem that many of the obstacles you cited are not insurmountable.
 
I can't say that I have listened with any great attention to detail, but Martin Logan seems to have an excellent following and reviews for their ESLs.

I think that getting truly great performance is hard to do, perhaps harder than using standard drivers, but it would seem that many of the obstacles you cited are not insurmountable.

I have a very rich friend who has top MLs with 5 JL Subs...he thinks they sound awesome, so does everyone else during his get togethers accept me ( I would never say anything I do say "That is really cool, no reason to argue about it with people that have zero audio science knowledge"). I can hear the distortion and off axis issues when he does his demos with live music or movies. I find it funny that I never realized how bad speakers like those sound until I heard truely good designs like high end JBL designs.

Im sure at < 90dB (with even peaks < 90dB) sitting on axis is just awesome for some people but Im so use to the HUGE sound stage of constant directivity designs that everything else isnt good any more.
 
Constant directivity speakers just sound better in any and every room period. Once you experience properly designed speakers you never go back to anything that beams or has poor off axis response and I do not live in world that has an "audiophile" sweet spot either since "Sweet spot" was always an excuse for poorly designed speakers.

Anyways, ESL designs are okay for some people. For me, (Geddes posted this already) but they lack dynamics (limited SPL), they have too much distortion (during content peaks > 20dB), They have a bad off axis response and they definitely are not easy to DIY.


I have a very rich friend who has top MLs with 5 JL Subs...he thinks they sound awesome, so does everyone else during his get togethers accept me ( I would never say anything I do say "That is really cool, no reason to argue about it with people that have zero audio science knowledge"). I can hear the distortion and off axis issues when he does his demos with live music or movies. I find it funny that I never realized how bad speakers like those sound until I heard truely good designs like high end JBL designs.

Im sure at < 90dB (with even peaks < 90dB) sitting on axis is just awesome for some people but Im so use to the HUGE sound stage of constant directivity designs that everything else isnt good any more.

Interesting comments doug !

I cannot comment on the sound of your friends system and i can believe what you say in regards to his sub/speaker setup, on the other hand i have never heard a JBL system or any constant directivity speaker that frankly , did what you are describing , good for playing loud and powerful, yes ! accurate reproduction of the recorded medium, no! ....

I do get what you mean about off axis and agree somewhat ,for me what is important is from the listening position in the center soundfield, horses for courses, i guess, then again this is audio, one man's euphoria is another's anathema ...

What JBL model in particular are we talking about ?
 
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I (and I think I'm not alone) simply don't like the way they sound. I never experienced "life sound" out of them , in contrary it was a fake, "high end" interpretation of a "life sound".I really don't like this esotheric ,prettier than real, etheric presentation where sources of music are not grounded but somehow are coming out of nowhere or hanging independly in the air .I'd compare this experience to fc...g a rubber doll instead of real sweating female ;)(sorry);) that's why I always imagine a potential user of static speakers as an older gentelman playing some smooth jazz or string quartets in the background while reading a newspaper. Also ,who can afford natural sounding 200-500w amp ? I'm not even sure if there are any available.Regards, L
 
Interesting comments doug !

I cannot comment on the sound of your friends system and i can believe what you say in regards to his sub/speaker setup, on the other hand i have never heard a JBL system or any constant directivity speaker that frankly , did what you are describing , good for playing loud and powerful, yes ! accurate reproduction of the recorded medium, no! ....

MLs are not accurate speakers period so Im not sure what your point bout "accurate reproduction" means. The best accuracy comes from the best measured designs. You have to understand how Harman builds JBL designs to understand what Im talking about when it comes to real accuracy. Accuracy is all about measured accuracy and not subjective audiophile opinion.

I do get what you mean about off axis and agree somewhat ,for me what is important is from the listening position in the center soundfield, horses for courses, i guess, then again this is audio, one man's euphoria is another's anathema ...

What JBL model in particular are we talking about ?

If you like something that is fine, there is no arguement about that at all but I want my setup to be as accurate as possible then I will tweak to what curve I like. ML owners will always be completely subjective about their speakers because they have nothing else to hang their hat on ;) There is no way around audio science and these sort of designs are very limited. If you have a situation that suits them the thats cool but they should never be passed of as better then their compromises permit.

It was the K2s!! I have been wanting to DIY similar since I heard them a while ago. Of course I would be happy remotely getting close to Geddes designs since the science behind them is unquestionably superior to most other designs ( I have never heard them).
 
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Well speaking from practical experience I think the answer to does it matter is a yes and no. The discussion seems to be diverging into two dogmatic views that mostly seem to be based on theory. My experience tells me that it depends. It depends on the listening environment, and how tolerant you are of beaming. Quad 53's in my room I could not tolerate because of strong beaming of the trebles. My current ESL's do beam, but no where near as bad as the Quads, and I find they are a very acceptable compromise. The beaming doesn't bother me much at all, so with these ESL's it doesn't really matter. It is all about making compromises because nothing will ever be perfect.
 
It should be obvious: beaming just doesn't matter when you are in the beam, eh.

People do not experience beaming. They experience loudness.

If a system whether ESL, constant directivity, horns in an anechoic chamber, whatever, produces rising treble at your ears, it is experienced as too much treble. If you are a person with a bit of engineering training, you might call it "beaming" because you read about it in an engineering textbook. But beaming is not a perceptual experience. If you don't understand that, you need to find a textbook of elementary human perception.

You'd be mistaken in thinking so some of the time. There's no way your ears can tell beaming from any other perturbation of tones while sitting still and enjoying the music or for that matter, with any sort of test tones and analytic listening, with your head in one spot (and anybody who has tested a music room with a mic, knows that all bets are off when you move a mic or a head a few inches). And that's, once again, my point. If you set up your system with final results melding the speaker, the room, and how you point stuff towards your sitting position, that's all you know... loudness.

In some rooms and with the best set-ups, constant directivity would be a disaster. In other rooms, beaming would be.
 
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It should be obvious: beaming just doesn't matter when you are in the beam, eh.

People do not experience beaming. They experience loudness.

People experience the effects of beaming.

They also experience time and phase when you include the room with the mix; you receive both incidental waves as well as direct on axis response.

The total sum includes multiple sources of different amplitudes and different times of arrival of the wave to the listener.

When a loudspeaker beams it directivity changes over frequency and so does the sum of the on-axis and off-axis incidental power response.

Having constant directivity throughout the spectrum just makes it easier to integrate the loudspeakers to the room or adjust and correct room deficiencies.
 
In Holland there is a famous home designer called Jan des Bouvrie. My wife bought one of his books some time ago. In this book there are photos of several living rooms; one photo shows the situation before, the other after the re-design of Jan des Bouvrie. So you will see new curtains, furniture (less than before ofcourse) Several times you will see some big bold (but presumeably high quality) boxes being replaced by some very small fancy speakers, preferably placed at either sides of a flat screen TV. The message to all women reading those magazines is clear: (very) big speakes do not belong in a popular, modern room. Now talk about 1,5 m high esls (or longer) with serious room (at least 1 meter) behind them, so even worse than the speakers removed by Jan des Bouvrie...........good luck!
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i have been saying for a long time that the WAf problem is a "macho" thing among men. Men seem to have this need to have big ugly speakers VISIBLE!! There is simply no reason for that. My speakers have not been visible for more than a decade and I have no problems with WAF as long as that is the case. This whole issue is clear evidence of that fact that few audiophiles buy speakers because of how they sound - if that weren't the case then hiding them would not be an issue.
 
Electrostatics are difficult to get right, almost impossible to do as diy and get good results. In order to do them right and avoid the big problems beaming and good dynamic range, you need to make them segmented, break up the LF resonance modes of the panels and you need a LOT of radiating area.

The Sound Labs are by far the best electrostatic I have heard. Here is a link to some of their technical principles:

Sound Lab Technology: Advanced electrostatic technologies in our speakers


The larger panels have over >3000 sq in of radiating area each. Some users have 4 panels of this size. They also need a good deal of voltage. OTL Amps like the Atma Spheres tend to work best. In the case of the SOund LAbs it is a capacitive load the impedance can go up to 50 ohms at the low freq and <4 ohms at HF.

So Electrostats can sound great, but not for DIY. Earl has a great solution for DIY folks with his Abby kits.
 
So Electrostats can sound great, but not for DIY. Earl has a great solution for DIY folks with his Abby kits.

I've heard many different electrostats as well and I went the route I went not because it was cheaper or easier, but because it right. I would put my speakers up agaisnt any electrostats. Where electrostats excel the waveguides are as good, but where mine excel the electrostats just can't do it - high levels with high dynamics (and cost!!).
 
I've heard many different electrostats as well and I went the route I went not because it was cheaper or easier, but because it right. I would put my speakers up agaisnt any electrostats. Where electrostats excel the waveguides are as good, but where mine excel the electrostats just can't do it - high levels with high dynamics (and cost!!).

It is not uncommon to hear that kind of praise - in reverse if not in specific features - from ESL owners. I am not exactly sure what it is that I and many ESL devotees find so compelling about them (clarity, precision, cleanliness, purity....???) and despite their practical shortcomings. But my guess is that few fans willingly or gladly take the road back.

I suppose there are high-performance cone speakers, just as there's a high-performance Chevrolet called the Corvette. But as a former Lotus owner and ESL fan, I can only shake my head puzzled at the lure of Corvettes, let alone Chevrolets.
 
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