Floor to Ceiling ESL ?

[Borat]

Anybody done that ?

Aside from the practical concerns such as being able to move the speaker to another apartment - is there any reason not to do that ?

I am talking about an ESL that starts within about 4" inches of floor and ceiling, that is custom made for a particular ceiling height.

[MJ Dijkstra]

Originally Posted by Borat

Anybody done that ?

Aside from the practical concerns such as being able to move the speaker to another apartment - is there any reason not to do that ?

I am talking about an ESL that starts within about 4" inches of floor and ceiling, that is custom made for a particular ceiling height.

Hi

E. Fikier designed the ESL240, a 240 cm tall ESL, from floor to ceiling. He published this design in his book (only available in dutch, online).
This was the first ESL I heard and it was amazing, including bass handling and clarity. That was the point I started my ESL hobby.
E. Fikier moved from his apartment to a house which had slightly lower ceiling.
His esl240 didn't fit anymore. So that's obviously a disadvantage.
But if you've got the space and freedom there is no reason not to give it a try.

[Capaciti]

Hi Borat,

in germany we say " you hit several flys whit one shot" if you extend your ESL to the ceiling.

1. The longer a membrane is, it radiates like a cylindrical wave to lower frequencies. Thats on e of the major advantage of tall ESL.
2. This cylindrical radiation reduces reflexions to the bottom an ceiling significantly. Less reflexions mean less impact to the expereinced sound by the surrounding room.
3. As mentioned the frequency where cylindrical changes to unidirectional radiation depends on length of membrane. The longer the deeper. The result is that a wider frequency band suffers less from room impact.
4. Lets say you have a long ESL standing on the floor, waht you usually do, then the floor acts like a mirror and virtually increase the length of the membrane, extending cylindrical radiation to lower frequencies.
5. The same is true for the ceiling. If you touch the ceiling you mirror there too, extending the positive effect of cylindrical wave.
6. In addition you seperate the room volume behind the speaker from the front. This means backwave reflections will see a physical hurdle, when running to the front side. The better you seperate back from front radiation, the better the imaging.
7. There are additional advantages, but thats it so far. Acoustat did that as well and be ensured, they knew why !

Capaciti

[Ulf Eliasson]

About 20 years ago I rebuild my Quad ESL57, putting the three membrane units on top of each other with the midrange/treble unit in the middle of a firm 240cm tall wooden frame. I developed a tension mechanism that makes solid contact to both floor and ceiling without leaving any marks (increases the WAF). I you have a pair of ESL57 I definitely recommend this vertical arrangement, it gives better definition, transient response and bass power. Strangely, almost all ESL designs, both commercial and diy, overlook the importance of a solid support for the membranes.

Other improvements to the ESL57 I recommend:
- Remove the protection frames (I have run mine without for over ten years without any problems).
- Change to metal film resistors and polypropylene capacitors of audio grade in the crossover filter.

[oublie]

I'm in the process of doing it atm,

still early days as time to build is limited but its a floor to ceiling open baffle with an electrostatic tweeter element from around 1.5k upwards.

I'll post when there is something substatial to show.

[Borat]

So the only reason not to do it - is portability ?

[Borat]

Originally Posted by Capaciti

in germany we say " you hit several flys whit one shot" if you extend your ESL to the ceiling.

we Russians say:

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[mavric]

Я не могу ждать, чтобы это было сделано, mavric

[Calvin]

Hi,

theoretically there are more advantages as disadvantages by the sheer number count, but nothing comes free.
The question should rather be: "How much do the advantages weigh and how much the disadvantages".
You should discriminate between panels for hybrid-usage and those for fullrange usage.
It doesn´t make sense to increase the length of the panel more than is needed.
What is needed is a matter of the panel´s lower bandwidth limit in first case. If lets say a hybrid is intended to work from 500Hz on, it would be rather nonsense to build a room-high panel, since to insure a cylindrical wave shape over its complete working range less height is needed (~1m). Less height means less unused capacitance that stresses the amplifier.
What an improvement could be the increased height when at the same the drive demands rise considerably? ESLs, even more so fullrange ESLs are no easy load to an amplifier. If You need more membrane area, keep the height (as required by the lower bandwidth limit) and increase the width of the panel.
I disagree with Capaciti´s No. 6). Imaging does not improve, because that is simply a matter of the time lag of reflected sound to direct sound and the degree of diffusion of the reflected sound. Localisation improves, yes, but in the extreme case of only direct sound and no reflected sound at all, things don´t sound natural either.
The thin ESL membrane is no obstacle to sound waves, instead it is acoustically transparent (think of Quad´s dust covers). Aim should be to disperse the reflected sound so that it doesn´t travel throuh the membrane in best cast. If You need a barrier, build something solid.

jauu
Calvin

[Ulf Eliasson]

At least two things happen when your speaker reaches from floor to ceiling and I mean all the way:
1. The frame supporting the membrane(s) is better fastened and will move/vibrate a lot less on transients. This results in better dynamics, more micro details and better low frequency response. (If you do not want your speakers to reach all the way up to the ceiling you could get the same result with a support to the back wall from the top part of the speaker.)
2. If you are lucky to have stone floor and/or ceiling and you can establish a solid mechanical contact (no spikes or vibration dampers) you can get amazing improvements in low frequency response, because you short-circuit away vibrations from the frame.
Put your effort here instead of fiddling with hybrid designs, they will at best be good compromises. If you do this right you do not need any sub-woofers.

As I sad before the importance of a solid frame solid supported in the room is for some reason overlooked in ESL designs when it is basic when you design a traditional dynamic loudspeaker. The box should be heavy and solid, when you play as loud as you can stand you should not be able to feel any vibrations wherever you touch the speaker-box with your fingertips. This is at least as important for ESL and MSL!