Electrostats can be superior to cones in purity and transient snap. The big diaphragm and low mass moves the air like nothing else. The closest I have had in my room is a 5 way fully horn loaded system that kills a stat in dynamics and FUN but can NOT have the coherency of the stat.
The perfect system does not exist for me - yet
Your system (IMHO) may be improved by putting some high efficiency 8" in for upper bass low mid (200-600) then crossing to the PR170's - I think if you keep the bass line then make the other panel into a WMTMW with some eights it will have a bit more snap. I have an extra quad of RCF 8's if you want them - I'll sell them cheap to you. Another thought wold be to run the Audax up higher and use a smaller treble horn.
The crossover can use some work too - there is a lot to be said about using a transient 'perfect' first order network or an ultra high quality electronic network compared to an off the shelf pro sound unit. The PLLXO is easy if you have level controls on your amps, just build cheap effective passive line level RC crossover at the input of the amps. A mediocre electronic crossover can really kill an otherwise serious system.
The perfect system does not exist for me - yet
Your system (IMHO) may be improved by putting some high efficiency 8" in for upper bass low mid (200-600) then crossing to the PR170's - I think if you keep the bass line then make the other panel into a WMTMW with some eights it will have a bit more snap. I have an extra quad of RCF 8's if you want them - I'll sell them cheap to you. Another thought wold be to run the Audax up higher and use a smaller treble horn.
The crossover can use some work too - there is a lot to be said about using a transient 'perfect' first order network or an ultra high quality electronic network compared to an off the shelf pro sound unit. The PLLXO is easy if you have level controls on your amps, just build cheap effective passive line level RC crossover at the input of the amps. A mediocre electronic crossover can really kill an otherwise serious system.
I'm sure the ESL's sound great. I've had (and enjoyed) the line source of Maggies so I understand the attraction to a line source speaker. And I won't argue that LR4 Ashly is the last word in crossovers either. 
Right now, I'm looking to just hear as many possible solutions for speakers as I can afford to build and at this point, the only thing important to me is the big picture. Do dipoles work for me; do line arrays work for me, do horns work for me, etc. While it's true that that last 5 percent is gonna depend on things like details of the XO, everything at this moment is disposable including these new speakers - they'll be firewood in 6 months, so a quick and dirty XO works well for me.
There's so much I haven't heard and so much I don't know about so many things, that I don't expect to find the "perfect system" either although I'd eventually like to do one final speaker before I die. For now, listening to the big pictures is what I need to do. And I'm pretty sure that dipole bass will end up in the final version...at least until I build some horns.
Right now, I'm looking to just hear as many possible solutions for speakers as I can afford to build and at this point, the only thing important to me is the big picture. Do dipoles work for me; do line arrays work for me, do horns work for me, etc. While it's true that that last 5 percent is gonna depend on things like details of the XO, everything at this moment is disposable including these new speakers - they'll be firewood in 6 months, so a quick and dirty XO works well for me.
There's so much I haven't heard and so much I don't know about so many things, that I don't expect to find the "perfect system" either although I'd eventually like to do one final speaker before I die. For now, listening to the big pictures is what I need to do. And I'm pretty sure that dipole bass will end up in the final version...at least until I build some horns.
Hi AJ,
Not sure if you will be interested. 2 way passive system using the DE250. Have a look at pispeaker and the publish "Pi Speaker crossover" document. http://www.pispeakers.com/contents.html In there he document how he select the type of crossover and the crossover point for the 15" pro woofer.
A few Pi4 builder have swap the stock compress HF driver to DE250 with good results.
http://audioroundtable.com/PiSpeakers/messages/21833.html
Not sure if you will be interested. 2 way passive system using the DE250. Have a look at pispeaker and the publish "Pi Speaker crossover" document. http://www.pispeakers.com/contents.html In there he document how he select the type of crossover and the crossover point for the 15" pro woofer.
A few Pi4 builder have swap the stock compress HF driver to DE250 with good results.
http://audioroundtable.com/PiSpeakers/messages/21833.html
Hopefully I'm not boring everyone, but I think I'm finished tweaking this project and the final result might be of interest to some of you.
First of all, I added a 24 inch wing to both woofer baffles using piano hinges. Here's a shot before I folded them back about 60-65 degrees. The measured differences between flush and folded back was essentially zero, so folded works better for saving some space.
The difference between the extra baffle and without, can be measured and is quite audible. Very deep electric bass is alot better defined and fuller with the wings - it's not much, but the extra flat resposnse between 80hz and 50hz really made a substantial difference. If you look closely at the two plots (green is all drivers completely raw and blue is after adding the wings plus passive CD EQ and passive midrange tweaking) you can see how the response stays flatter out to 50hz. It's really not as subtle as it may look. All measurements are taken at the listening position, about 8-1/2 feet from the face of the baffles.
The waveguide was eq'd with a 2uf cap and 20ohm resistor for about +- 2db between 2Khz and 15khz. I went thru just about every relevant cap and resistor combination I had on hand and what I ended up with seemed to work well. I measured at the mouth and in the throat, and I'm not sure if that's the way it should be done??? If someone could correct me here, I'd appreciate it. The reason I mention this is that when measuring at the listening position I still ended up with a drooping response, so maybe I should be doing it at 1 meter??? Anyway, not a very big deal.
Another word on the two plots below and the picture following. I have a DEQ1024 that I slid in to check out any final changes from room issues, and it was worth noting how little EQ was actually needed to get to the blue line. I have to say, these are the most well-behaved speakers I've ever had in this room. The final passive component count was practically nothing (also have a 40uf cap on the second midrange driver) and notice that the in-room response below 300hz has nothing applied to it at the DEQ unit. I filled the hole at 500hz, and leveled out the droop in the treble and that's it.
Going from the raw state to something similar, using just the DEQ, took every bit of every slider on that thing to do it, but the wings, and a coupla caps and a resistor reduced the room eq needs to pretty much nil. I thought that was pretty freakin' cool.
Here's one last shot of the woofer backside - seems like some of you guys like backside pictures.
I won't take up anymore of your time, but just wanted to say thanks for everyone's input. This project was very successful and these speakers just plain sound terrific.
One last thing - final XO points were LR4 @ 600hz and 2khz with an Ashly XR2001.
Best,
Allan
First of all, I added a 24 inch wing to both woofer baffles using piano hinges. Here's a shot before I folded them back about 60-65 degrees. The measured differences between flush and folded back was essentially zero, so folded works better for saving some space.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
The difference between the extra baffle and without, can be measured and is quite audible. Very deep electric bass is alot better defined and fuller with the wings - it's not much, but the extra flat resposnse between 80hz and 50hz really made a substantial difference. If you look closely at the two plots (green is all drivers completely raw and blue is after adding the wings plus passive CD EQ and passive midrange tweaking) you can see how the response stays flatter out to 50hz. It's really not as subtle as it may look. All measurements are taken at the listening position, about 8-1/2 feet from the face of the baffles.
The waveguide was eq'd with a 2uf cap and 20ohm resistor for about +- 2db between 2Khz and 15khz. I went thru just about every relevant cap and resistor combination I had on hand and what I ended up with seemed to work well. I measured at the mouth and in the throat, and I'm not sure if that's the way it should be done??? If someone could correct me here, I'd appreciate it. The reason I mention this is that when measuring at the listening position I still ended up with a drooping response, so maybe I should be doing it at 1 meter??? Anyway, not a very big deal.
Another word on the two plots below and the picture following. I have a DEQ1024 that I slid in to check out any final changes from room issues, and it was worth noting how little EQ was actually needed to get to the blue line. I have to say, these are the most well-behaved speakers I've ever had in this room. The final passive component count was practically nothing (also have a 40uf cap on the second midrange driver) and notice that the in-room response below 300hz has nothing applied to it at the DEQ unit. I filled the hole at 500hz, and leveled out the droop in the treble and that's it.
Going from the raw state to something similar, using just the DEQ, took every bit of every slider on that thing to do it, but the wings, and a coupla caps and a resistor reduced the room eq needs to pretty much nil. I thought that was pretty freakin' cool.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Here's one last shot of the woofer backside - seems like some of you guys like backside pictures.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
I won't take up anymore of your time, but just wanted to say thanks for everyone's input. This project was very successful and these speakers just plain sound terrific.
One last thing - final XO points were LR4 @ 600hz and 2khz with an Ashly XR2001.
Best,
Allan
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