I have a number of interesting rolls of esl diaphragm film taking up space. I have DuPont HS 65 which is the exact film used in Acoustat panels. I also have HS 80 and 150. I have rolls of Dupont Clysar in various versions from 50 gage up. All the Clysar films are original and all are HS (heat shrink). The Clysars are lighter than Mylar and almost as strong so a slightly heavier gage results in a fine skin light and strong and smoother sounding as it is not as hard as Mylar. The rolls vary some are folded double wide others not the narrowest is about 16 inches wide up to over 24 inches wide. Most of these rolls are about 1800 feet long but that will vary a little. There is enoufh film on a roll to last a diyer a life time or to start a small business rebulding Acoustat panels. (that idea's time has finally come). So the heavier films would also make for some excellent membrane absorbers for room acoustics and serious kites if anybody is into kites. Shipping on the lighter gage rolls is about $50.00 more on the big rolls. I am asking $100.00 per roll size/gage does not matter and that's as cheap as you will ever find film like this unless you get it free. Please don't ask for a deal this is a deal. PM if you are interested.Slpit up a roll with some bud's and it's almost free.
hav a look here...
http://www.gulfpack.com/pdf/gaugemicron.pdf
Remember that what you are really interested in is diaphragm mass rather than absolute thickness. 100 gauge Clysar is lighter than 65 gauge Mylar HS and it is stronger so you can build a stator about 7.5 inches wide with a 1/16 inch spacer and not have stability problems. For any one given material type lighter is good to a point. As far as I know the Quad ESL 63 is the thinnest commercial diaphtagm that I know of at 3.5 microns thin. Most are in the 6 to 15 micron range. I have been told that Sound Lab have a speaker with a 2.5 micron film but I am not sure that I was given correct information regarding that and I doubt that it is true. Hope that this helps.
http://www.gulfpack.com/pdf/gaugemicron.pdf
Remember that what you are really interested in is diaphragm mass rather than absolute thickness. 100 gauge Clysar is lighter than 65 gauge Mylar HS and it is stronger so you can build a stator about 7.5 inches wide with a 1/16 inch spacer and not have stability problems. For any one given material type lighter is good to a point. As far as I know the Quad ESL 63 is the thinnest commercial diaphtagm that I know of at 3.5 microns thin. Most are in the 6 to 15 micron range. I have been told that Sound Lab have a speaker with a 2.5 micron film but I am not sure that I was given correct information regarding that and I doubt that it is true. Hope that this helps.
Gold evaporated diaphragm?
Thanks for the link to the page on gauges and microns. I remain, however, a bit puzzled by the gauge sizes ... It seems that when the topic is wires, a higher gauge means a thinner wire, whereas for sheets or foils it's the other way around. If I'm not off here - how do you people avoid getting it mixed up
Thanks also for the comments on mass versus thickness. I will be using the foils for headphones and my inspiration here is the newer Stax headphones that apparently have foils with thicknesses of 1,35 um.
Yesterday, searching Dupont's webpages on Mylar, I found that they seem to have Mylar with a thickness of 0,9 um (maybe ranging from 0,9 - 2,4 um - that was not clear to me). This looks attractive, although I would have to find a way to attach gold leafs (about 0,4 um thickness) to the foil in a very sound- conducive way ...??
What thicknesses/masses do your foils have?
An alternative may be a very thin gold evaporated diaphragm like e.g. the one that M-Audio uses for their top of the line microphones. It has a thickness of 3 um, yet I don't know where to find this or a similar membrane?
Any suggestions ...?
Regards,
Jesper
Thanks for the link to the page on gauges and microns. I remain, however, a bit puzzled by the gauge sizes ... It seems that when the topic is wires, a higher gauge means a thinner wire, whereas for sheets or foils it's the other way around. If I'm not off here - how do you people avoid getting it mixed up
Thanks also for the comments on mass versus thickness. I will be using the foils for headphones and my inspiration here is the newer Stax headphones that apparently have foils with thicknesses of 1,35 um.
Yesterday, searching Dupont's webpages on Mylar, I found that they seem to have Mylar with a thickness of 0,9 um (maybe ranging from 0,9 - 2,4 um - that was not clear to me). This looks attractive, although I would have to find a way to attach gold leafs (about 0,4 um thickness) to the foil in a very sound- conducive way ...??
What thicknesses/masses do your foils have?
An alternative may be a very thin gold evaporated diaphragm like e.g. the one that M-Audio uses for their top of the line microphones. It has a thickness of 3 um, yet I don't know where to find this or a similar membrane?
Any suggestions ...?
Regards,
Jesper
some contact info..
contact Ray Harlan he can sell you some Hostaphan RE at 1.4 microns or some DuPont Mylar C at 0.9 microns either will be perfect to build headphones from. I would suggest that you get some resistive diaphragm coating liquid from ER Audio. I would advise you (strongly) against building a headphone with a conductive diaphragm of any kind especially gold leaf. That is just not a good idea. If you want to purchase a master roll DuPont will make you a roll of 0.25 micron mylar which is the thinnest that they can make with the existing equipment. Please send me a quater mile or so when you get it. Regarding gauge size larger gauge thicker film smaller gauge size thinner film look again. Once upon a time Stax claimed to have a phone with a one micron film but I do not know it they ever made it to market. Stax are nice phones but they have done nothing new for almost twenty years. I am sure that you could build a phone every bit as good and perhaps better if you do good work.
Check out Headwize for lots of gerat headphone am designs as well as some very good articles on headphone design and construction. You should probably also buid yourself a small stretching jig as well does not have to be fancy. If thats not enough to get you going well you know what to do. Hope that this helps.
Ray Harlan <rbharlan@comcast.net>
http://www.eraudio.com.au/Components/components.html
http://www.headwize.com/
contact Ray Harlan he can sell you some Hostaphan RE at 1.4 microns or some DuPont Mylar C at 0.9 microns either will be perfect to build headphones from. I would suggest that you get some resistive diaphragm coating liquid from ER Audio. I would advise you (strongly) against building a headphone with a conductive diaphragm of any kind especially gold leaf. That is just not a good idea. If you want to purchase a master roll DuPont will make you a roll of 0.25 micron mylar which is the thinnest that they can make with the existing equipment. Please send me a quater mile or so when you get it. Regarding gauge size larger gauge thicker film smaller gauge size thinner film look again. Once upon a time Stax claimed to have a phone with a one micron film but I do not know it they ever made it to market. Stax are nice phones but they have done nothing new for almost twenty years. I am sure that you could build a phone every bit as good and perhaps better if you do good work.
Check out Headwize for lots of gerat headphone am designs as well as some very good articles on headphone design and construction. You should probably also buid yourself a small stretching jig as well does not have to be fancy. If thats not enough to get you going well you know what to do. Hope that this helps.
Ray Harlan <rbharlan@comcast.net>
http://www.eraudio.com.au/Components/components.html
http://www.headwize.com/
Attachments
Wow, thanks Moray (or James, which is your first name?). Just briefly as I am off to work: Why do you recommend against using a conductive diagphragm?
Besides considering an electrostatic headphone I'm also considering a magnestatic design. Also materials in themselves - in my experience - do have quite distinctive sonic imprints, and a material that I have found to sound very good is gold. I have used gold wire for resistors in some of my loudspeakers with very good result.
Enjoy your day!
Jesper
Besides considering an electrostatic headphone I'm also considering a magnestatic design. Also materials in themselves - in my experience - do have quite distinctive sonic imprints, and a material that I have found to sound very good is gold. I have used gold wire for resistors in some of my loudspeakers with very good result.
Enjoy your day!
Jesper
You need to read up..
on constant charge esl's . Most all designs with a few exceptions have been and are constant charge. In this design you have a very high resistance coating on the diaphragm surface and this prevents the charge on the diaphragm from moving about on the diaphragm as it moves back and forth between the stators. A coating of gold leaf on either side of a thin diaphragm is going to have a lot of mass and you will loose the benefit of a thin light film. Getting a thick layer of gold leaf to stick to a diiaphragm that has a surface tension of about 40 dynes per cm. sq. is not going to be easy and the adhesive you use will add even more mass. You don't have a lot of force with electrostatics to begin with and you don't want to give any up with out a fight or a good reason.
ESl's lend themselves to headphone designs very well because you can make them so light an that makes them comfortable to wear. Magnets are heavy. I think that esl are very simple to build and so give the diy builder some advantage. With esl's you can have a diaphragm that is about 12 times thinner than a hair on your head. A diaphragm that is flexible yet as perfect a piston as can be made. So use that to your advantage. Perhaps you read something about Stax using gold as the resistive layer on their diaphragms I don't know. If they do it would be sputtered or vapour deposited and would be ultra thin. You cannot do that at home and even if you could it still does not make it a good idea just some marketing spin. There is a lot of excellent information on this forum on how to build an esl read that and use it to build your phones just use a thinner film and make them smaller. I am considering esl in ear design with a diaphragm about a cm in dia. There is no magic here just marketing hype spin BS what have you. Stax do make fine phones but they have not done anything new or interesting in the last twenty years. If you just want to build a clone you can but I will tell you that it will be easier and less expensive for you to buy a used set of Stax phones. If you really want to build a set for yourself then buy as used Stax set first so you can enjoy them and also so you can have a reference to compare you handy work to when you are done. You will probably need to have a few cracks at building your own and you will have to put some thought into your design if you expect them to be better than the stax. The day may come when you will find yourself wondering why you have the old Stax phones around anyway and so you will sell them off and get your money back. Good luck and have fun. I am very glad to see someone who is interested in building their own esl phones.
on constant charge esl's . Most all designs with a few exceptions have been and are constant charge. In this design you have a very high resistance coating on the diaphragm surface and this prevents the charge on the diaphragm from moving about on the diaphragm as it moves back and forth between the stators. A coating of gold leaf on either side of a thin diaphragm is going to have a lot of mass and you will loose the benefit of a thin light film. Getting a thick layer of gold leaf to stick to a diiaphragm that has a surface tension of about 40 dynes per cm. sq. is not going to be easy and the adhesive you use will add even more mass. You don't have a lot of force with electrostatics to begin with and you don't want to give any up with out a fight or a good reason.
ESl's lend themselves to headphone designs very well because you can make them so light an that makes them comfortable to wear. Magnets are heavy. I think that esl are very simple to build and so give the diy builder some advantage. With esl's you can have a diaphragm that is about 12 times thinner than a hair on your head. A diaphragm that is flexible yet as perfect a piston as can be made. So use that to your advantage. Perhaps you read something about Stax using gold as the resistive layer on their diaphragms I don't know. If they do it would be sputtered or vapour deposited and would be ultra thin. You cannot do that at home and even if you could it still does not make it a good idea just some marketing spin. There is a lot of excellent information on this forum on how to build an esl read that and use it to build your phones just use a thinner film and make them smaller. I am considering esl in ear design with a diaphragm about a cm in dia. There is no magic here just marketing hype spin BS what have you. Stax do make fine phones but they have not done anything new or interesting in the last twenty years. If you just want to build a clone you can but I will tell you that it will be easier and less expensive for you to buy a used set of Stax phones. If you really want to build a set for yourself then buy as used Stax set first so you can enjoy them and also so you can have a reference to compare you handy work to when you are done. You will probably need to have a few cracks at building your own and you will have to put some thought into your design if you expect them to be better than the stax. The day may come when you will find yourself wondering why you have the old Stax phones around anyway and so you will sell them off and get your money back. Good luck and have fun. I am very glad to see someone who is interested in building their own esl phones.
Very interesting...
.. your thoughts and advices. Thanks Moray. It has spurred a lot of thoughts on my behalf:
- You mention Dupont 0,25 micron Mylar and buying a master roll of this. I do not have experience with doing so - is it realistic and if so do you know what the price could be (I guess that if you "want" a quarter mile it's probably quite a lot? Do you think it would be interesting as a group buy here at DIYaudio, and maybe also advertised on prodigy-audio's forum (there's a lot of microphone designs here)?
- I contacted with Eraudio yesterday to get an idea of the resistances of the resistive coating you mentioned. It seems to be variable between the kohm range and multimegohms range. Have you succeded in applying an ultra, ultra thin layer with this? I have not yet had time to read about ESLs here on diyaudio but hope to do so soon.
- I see your point about weight and magnets. And I consider there are other less desirable aspects of magnets close to the head. They do have at least two desirable qualities, though, as I see it: They may provide a powerful magnetic field for the membrane to move in, and secondly, they basically only require current, and a little of this, to make it work. In practice I could use very simple battery-powered electronics to drive such a transducer.
And then my attention was caught when you mentioned an electrostatic Earspeaker ... It indeed sounds radically different and interesting - are you interested in sharing more about it? Do you consider earspeakers to be "better"/different than normal headphones?
Best regards,
Jesper
.. your thoughts and advices. Thanks Moray. It has spurred a lot of thoughts on my behalf:
- You mention Dupont 0,25 micron Mylar and buying a master roll of this. I do not have experience with doing so - is it realistic and if so do you know what the price could be (I guess that if you "want" a quarter mile it's probably quite a lot
? Do you think it would be interesting as a group buy here at DIYaudio, and maybe also advertised on prodigy-audio's forum (there's a lot of microphone designs here)? - I contacted with Eraudio yesterday to get an idea of the resistances of the resistive coating you mentioned. It seems to be variable between the kohm range and multimegohms range. Have you succeded in applying an ultra, ultra thin layer with this? I have not yet had time to read about ESLs here on diyaudio but hope to do so soon.
- I see your point about weight and magnets. And I consider there are other less desirable aspects of magnets close to the head. They do have at least two desirable qualities, though, as I see it: They may provide a powerful magnetic field for the membrane to move in, and secondly, they basically only require current, and a little of this, to make it work. In practice I could use very simple battery-powered electronics to drive such a transducer.
And then my attention was caught when you mentioned an electrostatic Earspeaker ... It indeed sounds radically different and interesting - are you interested in sharing more about it? Do you consider earspeakers to be "better"/different than normal headphones?
Best regards,
Jesper
not a very practicle suggestion...
that regarding the 0.25 micron film. This could be worked with but it would take expert care and skill level to use as it is as close to a layer of smoke as you would want to get. At least you know DuPont's capacity and yes you would have to purchase miles and miles of it on a master roll and it would be very expensive. The source that I gave you for 1.4 micron film is thinner than what Stax use and just as strong and the 0,9 micron film is also fairly easy to use and would be even better. Both are available at very reasonable prices and in small quantity. Use them and be happy, I have been searching for such films for twenty years.
There are a number of EC type coatings available and any one of them would do a fine job for your phone or microphone projects. Just pick one and have at it.
If you are prepared to build a point source headphone or microphone then a very small neo ring magnet will do very well and the whole assembly will not weight a lot. A line source magnetic drive or a maggie style device is just not going to be any good as it will weigh far to much and the phones will be falling off your head unless you clamp them in place in which case they will then be so uncomfortable that you will be taking them off all the time. If you are set on a magnetic drive then you might want to consider a Lineaum style device in which could be adapted to use in a phone or a microphone and would allow you some interesting possibilities. You can Google patent search the designer Paul W. Paddock. Or you can pull he current patent which is 5, 450, 497 lots of food for thought there.
In ear speakers or ear canal designs are somewhat misleading in that only the earpiece or plug actually inserts into the ear. They work the same way a cheap ear bud design does but the connection to the inner ear is far better and they are more comfortable. A pro hearing aid shop can fit you or you can make your own. http://www.diycustomplugs.co.uk/diy_ear_plugs.shtml.
You can make pocket size battery opperated amps for both dynamic as well as electrostatic phones. I gave you some links so have a look there is some interesting stuff there. I dont have a firm design to tell you about as I am spending my time considering the best possible method of building on such a small scale. I do have some rather different drive methods that I want to experiment with but thats's for me to know right now. I don't know how well they will work so I cannot recommend them to you. I said before that if you can clone a Stax and learn how and why it works the way it does then you can start to design your own ideas. You need to learn your building skills somewhere and Stax are as good as they get in a commercial ESL phone so study them as your reference. You should read and understand Mark's DIY article as everything you need to know is there. With that under your belt you can go on to your own ideas. Lots of amp designs at Heaswize and Head-Fi to inspire you so have at it. You need to start doing some serious reading. Like I said buy a set of used Pro Lambda's or similar they will cost a few hundred dollars and you will be inspired by them they are a joy to listen to. When you can build a phone that smokes your Stax you will be the expert. You can do it if you want to. Headwize has most all the usefull reference material that there is to get your hands on. Read it all. I have not seen any patents that I would recommend to you past the Paddock patent. I don't know what else I could possibly tell you. Best advice I can give you is just start building. You will learn far more from your mistakes than you could ever learn from simply reading design articles. Nice part is you will then be able to build your own esl loudspeakers as well. Looking forward to reports of your ongoing projects. Regards Moray James. link to Stax SR001 inear esl http://www.stax.co.jp/Export/SR001mk2e.html
that regarding the 0.25 micron film. This could be worked with but it would take expert care and skill level to use as it is as close to a layer of smoke as you would want to get. At least you know DuPont's capacity and yes you would have to purchase miles and miles of it on a master roll and it would be very expensive. The source that I gave you for 1.4 micron film is thinner than what Stax use and just as strong and the 0,9 micron film is also fairly easy to use and would be even better. Both are available at very reasonable prices and in small quantity. Use them and be happy, I have been searching for such films for twenty years.
There are a number of EC type coatings available and any one of them would do a fine job for your phone or microphone projects. Just pick one and have at it.
If you are prepared to build a point source headphone or microphone then a very small neo ring magnet will do very well and the whole assembly will not weight a lot. A line source magnetic drive or a maggie style device is just not going to be any good as it will weigh far to much and the phones will be falling off your head unless you clamp them in place in which case they will then be so uncomfortable that you will be taking them off all the time. If you are set on a magnetic drive then you might want to consider a Lineaum style device in which could be adapted to use in a phone or a microphone and would allow you some interesting possibilities. You can Google patent search the designer Paul W. Paddock. Or you can pull he current patent which is 5, 450, 497 lots of food for thought there.
In ear speakers or ear canal designs are somewhat misleading in that only the earpiece or plug actually inserts into the ear. They work the same way a cheap ear bud design does but the connection to the inner ear is far better and they are more comfortable. A pro hearing aid shop can fit you or you can make your own. http://www.diycustomplugs.co.uk/diy_ear_plugs.shtml.
You can make pocket size battery opperated amps for both dynamic as well as electrostatic phones. I gave you some links so have a look there is some interesting stuff there. I dont have a firm design to tell you about as I am spending my time considering the best possible method of building on such a small scale. I do have some rather different drive methods that I want to experiment with but thats's for me to know right now. I don't know how well they will work so I cannot recommend them to you. I said before that if you can clone a Stax and learn how and why it works the way it does then you can start to design your own ideas. You need to learn your building skills somewhere and Stax are as good as they get in a commercial ESL phone so study them as your reference. You should read and understand Mark's DIY article as everything you need to know is there. With that under your belt you can go on to your own ideas. Lots of amp designs at Heaswize and Head-Fi to inspire you so have at it. You need to start doing some serious reading. Like I said buy a set of used Pro Lambda's or similar they will cost a few hundred dollars and you will be inspired by them they are a joy to listen to. When you can build a phone that smokes your Stax you will be the expert. You can do it if you want to. Headwize has most all the usefull reference material that there is to get your hands on. Read it all. I have not seen any patents that I would recommend to you past the Paddock patent. I don't know what else I could possibly tell you. Best advice I can give you is just start building. You will learn far more from your mistakes than you could ever learn from simply reading design articles. Nice part is you will then be able to build your own esl loudspeakers as well. Looking forward to reports of your ongoing projects. Regards Moray James. link to Stax SR001 inear esl http://www.stax.co.jp/Export/SR001mk2e.html
The good ESL links...
here are the good links to find out about ESL's and who builds and repairs them. If its's not in these pages then you can probably do without it. I look forward to reading about your results with your project(s). Best regards Moray James.
http://www.geocities.com/drquad@pacbell.net/
http://www.quadesl.org.uk/
http://www.quadesl.org/
http://user.tninet.se/~vhw129w/mt_audio_design/esl_repair_penketh.htm
http://shackman-electrostatic-loudspeakers.reromanus.net/
http://www.quadesl.com/
http://www.integracoustics.com/MUG/MUG/tweaks/quad/hey_you/57.html
http://www.go.to/mtaudio
here are the good links to find out about ESL's and who builds and repairs them. If its's not in these pages then you can probably do without it. I look forward to reading about your results with your project(s). Best regards Moray James.
http://www.geocities.com/drquad@pacbell.net/
http://www.quadesl.org.uk/
http://www.quadesl.org/
http://user.tninet.se/~vhw129w/mt_audio_design/esl_repair_penketh.htm
http://shackman-electrostatic-loudspeakers.reromanus.net/
http://www.quadesl.com/
http://www.integracoustics.com/MUG/MUG/tweaks/quad/hey_you/57.html
http://www.go.to/mtaudio
Deep thank you
Dear Moray James,
Thank you so much for these links and the information! It seems quite extensive and I believe that you have - just like that - provided me with most all the information I would need to start well off with doing electrostats myself.
I will start reading and doing and hope that I can get back to you at a later point in time if things turn out this way...?
Let me know if I can be of assistance to you (you can find more about my approach to and experiences with audio on my profile page).
All the best from Jesper
Dear Moray James,
Thank you so much for these links and the information! It seems quite extensive and I believe that you have - just like that
- provided me with most all the information I would need to start well off with doing electrostats myself.I will start reading and doing and hope that I can get back to you at a later point in time if things turn out this way...?
Let me know if I can be of assistance to you (you can find more about my approach to and experiences with audio on my profile page).
All the best from Jesper
Jesper forgot this one...
Mark's page even has a design for a pneumatic stretcher and with a little thought you can make one any size you like. If you are interested you can contact me to discuss a winding jig for insulated wire stators similar to those used by Acoustat but with far more wires per inch. Regards Moray James. say if you make speakers will they be "Dane-a-stats?
http://esl.rehorst.com/how_to_esl.htm
Mark's page even has a design for a pneumatic stretcher and with a little thought you can make one any size you like. If you are interested you can contact me to discuss a winding jig for insulated wire stators similar to those used by Acoustat but with far more wires per inch. Regards Moray James. say if you make speakers will they be "Dane-a-stats?
http://esl.rehorst.com/how_to_esl.htm
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