Audio Banter - View Single Post - ER Audio ESL-3B speaker kit progress, 22 May07.

**Patrick Turner** · May 23rd 07, 04:31 PM posted to rec.audio.tubes,uk.rec.audio,aus.hi-fi

wrote:

Patrick Turner wrote:
Some of you may have been following my reported progress...

Snip for brevity,

I admire your perseverance, Patrick, I really do. But by now you've
put in so much labor, a pair of Quad electrostats will be cheaper.

Thanks to The Boss I didn't go down your route. I enjoyed making
various quarter wave tapered pipes that Andre designed, and his
Impresario which my wife banished to the basement of our summer house
because it is so big, and horns for which Andre got me factory wood
and held my hand by e-mail through the assembly and modification and
veneering. Then I thought I was ready for electrostats. The Boss said
he would design me a direct drive tube amp if I actually managed to
build something first that worked with a stepup transformer from
Sowter. But I found a Dutch site and got some Google translations, and
Andre made me a couple more translations, and they frightened me right
off. Like The Boss said all along, it is much cheaper to buy Quads
than to mess around with DIY panels. They never work right. I still
dream of making my own electrostatic headphones though for the time
being, again on Andre's recommendation, I've just bought a pair of
Stax and built one of Andre's octal OTL amps to drive it. On the scale
of electrostatic earphones, a reasonable DIY result ought to be
possible. Maybe not economical considering how cheap Stax earhpones
are but possible, don't you think?

Kind regards,

Gray Glasser

I don't know too many others with my approach of trying to understand a
design
as one builds it, even to the point of telling a maker how he should
have done it.

I came to audio because I couldn't continue as a builder; my knees went
on strike.
I took the huge pay cut graciously; ppl pay a builder far more than they
will pay a sound man.

I am addicted to analysis and getting *good enough* measurements with
everything I have ever made.
When the things measure pretty well,
then everyone is welcome to argue about the kind of caps and hook-up
wire and brand of solder and tube choice
but unless the measurements are somewhere near decent, its a battle to
get good music.

I have always been very self reliant.

For someone who enjoys a challenge, an ESL kit is just that, and given
my level of
perserverence, somwone might get good results, and the whole project
will
end up a lot cheaper than a new set of Quads.

As long as the membranes are tight, evenly coated and stretched and
glued, and there
are no stiction problems, then good sound should come from aany ESL if
they
have been tailored to give the wanted response.
Getting horns made at home to sound well is often a case of building
expensive fire wood.
Much DIY stuff is mere junk, full of unwanted sonic artifacts, lousy
responses etc, and
ESL are the one type of speaker that doesn't have woodwork which can
resonate.

Maybe I get there in the end.

Patrick Turner.

in