In article
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Andre Jute wrote:
I've oft wondered about that. My actual experience of electrostatics
is limited in depth to the original Quad design. And those had perhaps
the most critical sweet spot of any speaker, but when in it had
excellent imaging. I never did have an opportunity to live with a
stacked set up to really decide how well it worked.

Well, I had stacked ESL57 for years, and perhaps everyone should
experience them once but stacks are not the end-all and be-all of
stats; I'm just explaining to Poopie how it is done with the round-
form diaphraghms like the ESL-63 because he doesn't appear to have the
brains to work it out.

The 57 is tricky to stack right; you can as easily muddle your sound
as boost its volume. You stack ESL-57 one on top of the other, the top
one turned upside down and angled towards the bottom one, the entire
assembly pivoted around the joint towards the listening chair, ditto
for the assembly on the other side. Each assembly is also angled
inwards in relation to the side wall to face the listening chair
squarely (line from the listening chair to the radiating face hits it
perpendicularly). Now you're looking at four imaginary lines making a
pyramid towards the listening chair. It helps to get the four lines
the same length if you raise the assembly on each side several feet
and tilt it over towards the listening chair. As by now you suspect,
stacking ESL57 turns your music into a perfectly lonely pastime; the
sweet spot becomes hypercritical in three dimensions. I kept stacked
ESL for years because mine was aimed at my work chair in front of my
computer, in which I sat in the sweet spot for hours. Visitors to my
study had only a partial experience of the music...

What I suspected. I only really heard them once and was plonked in the
listening chair by the owner. And was reasonably impressed - although I
need long term experience to form a firm opinion.

For years I also had a singleton 57 from some old chappie who read my
music column; it came complete with correspondence in Peter Walker's
own hand which I still have. Sometimes for months on end I would play
just the single 57, and not because I was moving around, quite the
contrary: I was sitting at my desk for 16 hours every day grafting
away on a big book. I remember that as one of the sweetest musical
experiences ever, a really good reason to go mono; that is still my
reference of the purest, most angelic sound I ever heard. Soundstaging
is really a rather trivial trick, and the only one stereo offers for
what is often a very high price in its associated downsides; it is a
party trick for "audiophiles" who have no real interest in the
enjoyment of music.

I totally disagree. Everything being equal good stereo adds considerably
to the enjoyment of pretty well any music or indeed reproduced sounds. It
is of course more difficult to get good stereo in an average room and
possibly also to record it. Certainly to reproduce it on early media which
had to be mono compatible. Both FM radio and LP suffered flaws through the
adoption of stereo.

--
*If tennis elbow is painful, imagine suffering with tennis balls *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.