power demands

[legendaryfrog]

as an environmentalist, i tightly monitor how much power my "gadgets" use up. From the searching i noticed some ESL's using at least 230 (watts?) do they really use that much power? my comp uses that much.......

[moray james]

I have run both Acoustat (0ne plus 0nes) and inner sound (eros) panels with Antique Sound Labs Waves (8 watt mono blocks) and ouuld achieve decent listening levels on both. Bigger ams do sound better. A friend is running 0ne plus 0nes with an ARC tripath amp 300 per chanel and it sounds very good. Amps that don't like the load very much will work but not sound very impressive and lack dynamics. Regards Moray James.

[legendaryfrog]

im sorry if i mislead you, im asking about the power demands of ESL's.

[MJ Dijkstra]

The high voltage unit within the ESL usually consumes less than 10 Watt.
Some of the units can automatically shut down when there is no music to be played; this is not to save energy, but to extend the life of the ESL in the first place.

MartinJan

[legendaryfrog]

is tis also true with diy ESL's?

[MJ Dijkstra]

Yes, unless they made a mistake

[bwaslo]

Don't confuse average power dissipation with amplifier power capability. An amp that can handle and is playing 200W peaks may be only putting out milliwatts of average power. So the average dissipation will usually be much lower than the power capability (unless it is a class A amplifier).

[WrineX]

hmm i dont think a cascade high voltage unit will consume 10 watt ,it may put out high voltage but absolute no current.
maybe it depends on the construction of the cascade but i know many desgigns where they tell you to let them plugged in.

And also discharging and charging the element all the time wont exactly expand life time. there is nothing wrong with having costand power on the mylar, at least i cant think of any reason why it should destroy either the mylar or the coating.

i think its more the thought of leaving equipment plugged in.

[JinMTVT]

you guys talked about shutting down the high voltage on the diaphragm when not in use

can you propose a simple effective way to make an auto on and off circuit to extend the life of the unit ?

i have seen such auto much times on subwoofer plate amps ..

[BillH]

Hi, Jin. Take a look at ESP's Project 38. I've built a pair for ESL power switching with the speaker level input. They worked great with a bit of component tweaking. There's a photo of one of them in this post. It's the pcb in the front.