You usually listen to headphones in the near field and to electrostatic loudspeakers in the far field. For flat panel electrostats, you need frequency-independent current drive to get a flat response in the far field and frequency-independent voltage to get a flat response in the near field. That is, you probably need a first-order low-pass at 4 kHz to get a flat response above 4 kHz.
Cascade a first-order high-pass at 4 kHz and a first-order low-pass at 4 kHz (*) and together with the panels you have a second-order 4 kHz Linkwitz-Riley high-pass response in the far field.
(*): with a buffer in between or with a large impedance ratio to keep them from influencing each other
Cascade a first-order high-pass at 4 kHz and a first-order low-pass at 4 kHz (*) and together with the panels you have a second-order 4 kHz Linkwitz-Riley high-pass response in the far field.
(*): with a buffer in between or with a large impedance ratio to keep them from influencing each other
Besides Xmax, ESLs have a further limitation in the maximum possible force per unit area that can be applied to the diaphragm(foil) of roughly 50N/m^2 due to ionization of the air in the gap between diaphragm and stator. This is why all ESLs tend to by much larger than their magnetic driver counterparts. With the small size of the headphones, this limits SPL at 2m listening distance to roughly 85dB maximum @ 4kHz before they would start to arc internally.
As much as I am a partisan for ESLs, the octave or so in the range north of perhaps 5kHz (just a rough pick) can probably be handled better in half a dozen respects by any number of other mechanisms starting off with $25 silk domes.
And your amp will probably also be happy to be free of driving the high-frequency band of a full-range ESL too.
B.
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