Anyone ever thought of making really, really big ESL panels that are not driven uniformly?
I have this crazy idea of making one large panel - possibly the size of a blackboard, maybe even wall-sized, for both 'channels.' The stators would be vertical wires rather than mesh, and some sort of switching matrix would be used to energize a given stator wire and cause the sound to eminate from that line source. This would allow localization of the sound instead of a virtual source as in traditional stereo. Perhaps a bunch of smaller amplifiers could be used, one for each stator?
Of course signal processing would be necessary to split the stereo signal into a matrix signal. The Quad point-source idea could be investigated using an additional set of horizontal stators and some more signal processing to switch the vertical and horizontal stators on/off to create a pond-ripple effect starting from a point sound source.
I would imagine that the low frequencies would be distributed across the whole membrane, transitioning to the switched mode gradually as frequency increased. This would give a large membrane area for good bass SPL.
Any thoughts or ideas?
Cheers,
Eric
I have this crazy idea of making one large panel - possibly the size of a blackboard, maybe even wall-sized, for both 'channels.' The stators would be vertical wires rather than mesh, and some sort of switching matrix would be used to energize a given stator wire and cause the sound to eminate from that line source. This would allow localization of the sound instead of a virtual source as in traditional stereo. Perhaps a bunch of smaller amplifiers could be used, one for each stator?
Of course signal processing would be necessary to split the stereo signal into a matrix signal. The Quad point-source idea could be investigated using an additional set of horizontal stators and some more signal processing to switch the vertical and horizontal stators on/off to create a pond-ripple effect starting from a point sound source.
I would imagine that the low frequencies would be distributed across the whole membrane, transitioning to the switched mode gradually as frequency increased. This would give a large membrane area for good bass SPL.
Any thoughts or ideas?
Cheers,
Eric
Peter Walker to the rescue!
Well, as almost always happens with new ideas, someone has looked into this before and that someone was none other than the late, great Peter Walker of Quad fame. He describes one wall covered by a giant electrostatic panel, which is driven on the left side for the left channel and on the right side for the right channel with appropriate electrical transmission-line delays to create two angled wave launches from one huge panel. That’s right, stereo from one driver. I tried to attach the article but it is too big - sorry.
Well, as almost always happens with new ideas, someone has looked into this before and that someone was none other than the late, great Peter Walker of Quad fame. He describes one wall covered by a giant electrostatic panel, which is driven on the left side for the left channel and on the right side for the right channel with appropriate electrical transmission-line delays to create two angled wave launches from one huge panel. That’s right, stereo from one driver. I tried to attach the article but it is too big - sorry.
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