"Nick Gorham" wrote
Fleetie wrote:
A) ESL-57s look OLD, DATED, UGLY, BROWN, and just YUCKY.

OSAF.

Sorry, "OSAF"?

TBH, If I didn't know they were speakers, I'd assume from their appearance,
and those awful legs that they stand on, that they were heaters.

Again OSAF, you say you have only heard them once, but feel confidant that you know what they sound like.

True, I can't deny that. If you want my opinion, they look like they
sound middy and squawky. And that's about it.

D) "Emperor's OLD clothes".

Whatever that means.

It means that the establishment still bows down before them but they're
out-of-date antiques and definitely unworthy of the reverence afforded
them. And I say that having heard them once. I remember not being impressed,
cos I was already aware of them when I saw and heard them.

Well, you could point exactly the same finger at the valve amp you have/had. the valves date from just about the same time (or a
bit earlier maybe)

There is little about a _valve_ that is fundamentally flawed. But let's
not get distracted down that side-alley. This sub-thread is not about amp
technology, it's about the fact that ESL-57s are past their use-by date.

And we ALL know that speakers introduce FAR FAR more distortion than amps
do, under normal conditions. So your argument is specious. Well, not even.

Not sure going louder is in itself a issue.

It is; the ear's frequency response flattens with increasing SPL.

You know from when I visited you (for which hospitality thanks again) that
I like to listen loud.

I would guess your Dyneaudios go louder, higher and lower, but I will bet you the midrange sucks on the dyneaudios compaired to
the ELS's

I will bet you it doesn't.

Although it's hard to define a formal metric for that without invoking
capacitor mics and oscilloscopes and so on.

I would be interested to know what the ESL-57s sold for (* 2 for a pair)
back when they were a current model, and what that'd be "in real terms"
today. I suppose they'd be pretty expensive, but that's a guess.

Even still, The Dynaudios'd thrash 'em I reckon.

I would be interested to hear the squawky abominations again just to confirm
my suspicions that they're overrated and ugly antiques. They ought to be
"cheap as chips", apart MAYBE from the fact that they are undeniably a
milestone in hi-fi.


Martin
--
M.A.Poyser Tel.: 07967 110890
Manchester, U.K. http://www.fleetie.demon.co.uk

Fleetie wrote:
"Nick Gorham" wrote

Fleetie wrote:

A) ESL-57s look OLD, DATED, UGLY, BROWN, and just YUCKY.

OSAF.


Sorry, "OSAF"?

Opinion stated as fact.


TBH, If I didn't know they were speakers, I'd assume from their appearance,
and those awful legs that they stand on, that they were heaters.


So thats a assumption, I don't see what it has to do with anything other
than you opinions.


Again OSAF, you say you have only heard them once, but feel confidant that you know what they sound like.


True, I can't deny that. If you want my opinion, they look like they
sound middy and squawky. And that's about it.


Ok, and I guess your speakers look like they should sound woody and boxy
then ?


D) "Emperor's OLD clothes".


Whatever that means.


It means that the establishment still bows down before them but they're
out-of-date antiques and definitely unworthy of the reverence afforded
them. And I say that having heard them once. I remember not being impressed,
cos I was already aware of them when I saw and heard them.


I don't think you can have a up to date antique.

I am not suggesting that I regard them with reverence, just questioning
that anything in your original statement was based on anything other
than YOUR opinion. Which of course you are allowed to have, but you
start to sound like others on the NG, when you state that opinion in
this way.



Well, you could point exactly the same finger at the valve amp you have/had. the valves date from just about the same time (or a
bit earlier maybe)


There is little about a _valve_ that is fundamentally flawed. But let's
not get distracted down that side-alley. This sub-thread is not about amp
technology, it's about the fact that ESL-57s are past their use-by date.


But why, again, you have said that the 57's are old and therefor
worthless, you haven't yet given one reason for that to be the case.
Quad themself replaced them, so they must have had reasons, but I have
yet to hear one from you, thats my point. From the the above statement,
you are inferring that there is something flawed about 57's, again, that
may be so, but you have failed to tell us what it is.

And we ALL know that speakers introduce FAR FAR more distortion than amps
do, under normal conditions. So your argument is specious. Well, not even.


No argument about that, thought I don't see what that has to do with
anything. I wasn't proposing a argument, and certainly not mentioning
distortion. All I was doing was pointing out, that if the only flaw with
57's was their age, then exactly the same point must be true of valves,
and anything else more than 48 years old.


Not sure going louder is in itself a issue.


It is; the ear's frequency response flattens with increasing SPL.

Yes, but I don't see the point of hearing a piano louder than a piano
(for example). if something is played at natural volume then is that not
the point at which the ear's FR matches what would be heard in a live
situation.


You know from when I visited you (for which hospitality thanks again) that
I like to listen loud.


Yes. and so I can see why the 57's would not be a good choice for you,
but again, thats about you and the 57's not the 57's on their own.


I would guess your Dyneaudios go louder, higher and lower, but I will bet you the midrange sucks on the dyneaudios compaired to
the ELS's


I will bet you it doesn't.

Unfortunatly I don't own a pair so I can't take that any further. I do
know of a kit built static speaker in Leeds that would take a lot to
match with anything moving coil. Again IMHO.


Although it's hard to define a formal metric for that without invoking
capacitor mics and oscilloscopes and so on.


Even given mics and scopes I don't see what you would get. Other than
measuring the THD at (say) 1k, at which I suggest the ELS would romp
away with it.

I would be interested to know what the ESL-57s sold for (* 2 for a pair)
back when they were a current model, and what that'd be "in real terms"
today. I suppose they'd be pretty expensive, but that's a guess.


And the point of that guess is ?

Even still, The Dynaudios'd thrash 'em I reckon.


Good, that means you are happy with what you have, just as well you
opinion goes that way.

I would be interested to hear the squawky abominations again just to confirm
my suspicions that they're overrated and ugly antiques. They ought to be
"cheap as chips", apart MAYBE from the fact that they are undeniably a
milestone in hi-fi.

I agree with Stew, thay have been improved on, I prefer the next model
myself, and I haven't heard the current ones enough to have a opinion.
But one thing I have never heard a electostatic do is make any noise
that could be described as a "squawk", unless maybe its being used to
play a BBC sound effect record :-)

--
Nick

"Life has surface noise" - John Peel 1939-2004

In article ,
Fleetie wrote:
If you want my opinion, they look like they
sound middy and squawky. And that's about it.

I'd suggest you've only heard a poor pair. They need panel replacement
fairly frequently - and the treble panels go first. In good condition,
they should sound as smooth as near anything. The bass end is *very*
room/position sensitive. But then so are plenty speakers.

--
*My designated driver drove me to drink

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

In article , Fleetie
wrote:
A) ESL-57s look OLD, DATED, UGLY, BROWN, and just YUCKY.

Its fair comment to say that the range of appearances of the 988's and
989's is rather more trendy. But I suspect the 57's looked pretty 'cool'
when they first appeared.

B) It seems "cool" to revere them. They're nearly 50 years old now. They
might (or might not; I've only heard them once IIRC, and that was years
ago at a Penta show, I think) sound ok in the mid or whatever, but I am
sure they're not as good as the uninitiated observer might be led to
think, given the amount of chin-stroking sage reverence that they still
seem to evoke.

I'd guess that over 95% of the speakers I've heard at audio shows sounded
poor. Maybe this has something to do with them being in a room an at audio
show...

Perhaps if you'd heard a pair in 'new' condition, heard them carefully
placed in a decent domestic acoustic, and spent some time listening to a
variety of music, you might have come to different conclusions. I certainly
would not rush to judge speakers on the basis of how they sounded at a
show.

C) I would personally never give them house space. I can see that they
might have value as antiques that in some cases still function, but
let's be honest, speaker technology has moved a LONG way in the 50 years
since they were designed.

Yes. Cone and box speakers have improved.

So have electrostatics. :-)

D) "Emperor's OLD clothes".

Yes. The 57 is a pretty old design, and you'd have to spend some money to
get some in quasi-new condition. Fortunately, you could also opt for a 988
or 989 if you wished... :-)

There! I've said it! Can I be burnt as a heretic now?

Oh and I bet my Dynaudios'd kick ESL-57s' sorry asses into the grave
where they definitely belong. And go a fair bit louder.

Probably. Loudness tends to be enhanced by colourations and distortions.
:-)

Next instalment: The LS3/5a.

Feel free. :-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html

On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 20:09:56 GMT, "Fleetie"
wrote:

I would be interested to know what the ESL-57s sold for (* 2 for a pair)
back when they were a current model, and what that'd be "in real terms"
today. I suppose they'd be pretty expensive, but that's a guess.

Even still, The Dynaudios'd thrash 'em I reckon.

Back in 1975, the electronics magazine ETI did a review of the 57. One
of their test was a toneburst and they included a picture from their
'scope showing the original input and the output from their measuring
system.

You might like to try this test with your speakers and report the
results.

The article is available at:

http://users.chariot.net.au/~debpeter/quadrpt.html

I would be interested to hear the squawky abominations again just to confirm
my suspicions that they're overrated and ugly antiques. They ought to be
"cheap as chips", apart MAYBE from the fact that they are undeniably a
milestone in hi-fi.

The merits of the 57 and 63 were discussed in the group in some depth
in December 2003. (Look for the thread "Quad 57 v 63" using Google
groups.) I would advise skipping the first 90 articles, which are
mostly off-topic rantings from the usual suspects.

My experience from living with a pair of 57's for a number of years is
very different from your description. For all their defects, they are
the closest I have come to speakers that sound like windows opening
onto the concert hall. (The music sounds like it is coming through
rather then from the speakers.)


--
Chris Isbell
Southampton, UK

On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 21:00:02 +0000, Nick Gorham
wrote:

Fleetie wrote:

I would be interested to know what the ESL-57s sold for (* 2 for a pair)
back when they were a current model, and what that'd be "in real terms"
today. I suppose they'd be pretty expensive, but that's a guess.

And the point of that guess is ?

To establish a reference against coonventional speakers, I guess.

According to my handy-dandy Hi-Fi Choice from 1976, they sold for £276
plus VAT. In comparison, the Yamaha NS1000M (which I owned in the late
'70s) was £444, the Spendor BC1 was £205.80, the Chartwell LS3/5a was
£125, the KEF 104aB was £185, and the Tannoy Cheviot (with 12"
dual-concentric driver) was £254.

If you compare that to modern equivalents, I guess the '57 would sell
for about £1500-2000 today, which may put it into context for you. I'd
forgotten how horribly expensive the Yammy was in those days - in 1976
that was about a month's take-home pay for me as an electronics
engineer at Marconi! That's probably a better general benchmark for
what things really cost - how many weeks do you have to work to make
the price of the speaker?

I would be interested to hear the squawky abominations again just to confirm
my suspicions that they're overrated and ugly antiques. They ought to be
"cheap as chips", apart MAYBE from the fact that they are undeniably a
milestone in hi-fi.

I agree with Stew, thay have been improved on, I prefer the next model
myself, and I haven't heard the current ones enough to have a opinion.
But one thing I have never heard a electostatic do is make any noise
that could be described as a "squawk", unless maybe its being used to
play a BBC sound effect record :-)

Well, to my ears, the '57s do 'squawk' in the sense that the midband
is dominant, and they have horrible comb-filter peaks and troughs due
to the panel arrangement, but they were of course a landmark in sheer
clartity, in an era when 'dead' cabinets and low-resonance drivers
didn't really exist. Things are different now, vide the B&W Nautilus
series and many others.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

My experience from living with a pair of 57's for a number of years is
very different from your description. For all their defects, they are
the closest I have come to speakers that sound like windows opening
onto the concert hall. (The music sounds like it is coming through
rather then from the speakers.)


When the originating signal is right.. Then thats the experience I get
--
Tony Sayer

Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article , Rob
wrote:



*If* I was to consider ESLs could any of you sum up, in a couple of
lines, the sort of amplification and room sizes necessary to help them
(say 63s) work properly?


Except for the ealiest issue boards the 63 is a much easier load than the
57. Hence ultra-high currents are not normally required. The speakers also
have protection circuits that may cut in somewhere above about 50V. Hence
in the most basic terms the nominal requirement is for an amp that can
manage about 100-150Wpc into 8 Ohm loads and would be happy with 4 Ohm
loads.

In theory, the amp might have to endure the corwbar protection in the
speakers being triggered. This shoves a 'short' across the terminals and
would mean the amp should have either good fusing or a current limiter.
However despite this I've used a 200Wpc monster with no current limiters
with a pair of 63's for 20 years and never had a problem.

The conventional wisdom is that you need a reasonably large room. However
both the rooms I use I would say are 'small'. Yet I get results which sound
good to me. I think that a more relaistic requirement here is that the
speakers need to be as far from the back walls as possible. Certainly at
least 1 metre away, and more is better. The listening position also being
well away from the back walls.

In a small room this also tends to imply you have to angle the speakers to
get the axis up near your ears. I found that stands were also a good idea.
However all these things are really a matter of experiment as the optimum
will probably vary a lot from one room to another.


I've only ever heard Quad electrostatics twice - once in a hifi 'shop'
(the old Laskey's in Birmingham, a huge room), and once at someone's
home. In the shop the music sounded superb, as good as I've heard, but
at this bloke's house I found it very 'thin' - inoffensive but lacking
detail and weight at frequency extremes. The room was probably 25'x15',
and we were about 15' from the speakers. I didn't recognise any of the
kit, but he was very rich - I'd guess it was 'decent'.


The 63's can easily sound 'light' on bass. To some extent this can be
adjusted by careful positioning, etc. However I also found that there were
two ways to counter this.

1) To use a Quad 34 with a modified bass lift control. Or some equivalent
of this. This then helped get a flatter response down to a lower frequency.
Without this the response tends to fall away somewhere around 60Hz. With
it, you can extend down towards about 35-40Hz

or

2) Simply buy a subwoofer and use this to fill in below 50Hz or so. This
can fill in nicely down to 20Hz if so desired.

(1) tends to give a nice result, but restricts the power level you can use
a bit, depending on the music and room size. Snag is the need to modify the
34, or make up a suitable 'shelf' filter to go between preamp and power
amp.

(2) goes deeper and gives more power at LF, but is more tricky in terms of
getting the 'match' right. Now that I use 988's + sub I find that this
gives good results on music and the required 'thuds and bangs' for films.

Any apparent lack at HF can be a result of either not being on-axis, or
missing the colourations of conventional tweeters. Also of a difference in
the levels of room excitations as conventional speakers do this differently
to the ESLs. FWIW although the sound can change when you listen to the
ESLs, I'd say that once you have listened to them for a while you tend to
end up feeling that the ESL is 'right' and the conventional speakers are
'wrong' - although this is obvious subject to my bias. ;- Also depends
on how the music was balanced when recorded.

Slainte,

Jim#


Many thanks for that, very interesting. Electrostatic speakers remain
one thing I haven't tried, and I think I might have a go at some time.
My room is going to be a limiting factor - about 14'x10' - which would
mean 'wheeling them in and me out' for serious listening. But otherwise
I think the amplifier I have should cope. Ebay is good for allowing
this sort of experimentation without costing too much. Big bass is not
an option for neighbour reasons.

Just a word on aesthetics - it's pretty noticeable that partners,
usually women, seem to be the arbiters and authority here. Why is that?!
Don't blokes care? I certainly do and would like the whole thing to be
as discrete as possible. For that reason (ie - my hifi is not discrete,
all acrylic and glowing bottles and speakers on stalks) I contain the
whole lot to one room, with another room for telly and suchlike. This, I
might add, is a habit formed from living with partners (women as it
happens) at various times - cause or effect I'm not sure! In any event
to have speakers that blend in to some extent *and* sound good seems
like the way forward.

Rob

This, I
might add, is a habit formed from living with partners (women as it
happens) at various times - cause or effect I'm not sure! In any event
to have speakers that blend in to some extent *and* sound good seems
like the way forward.

Rob

Course these fings aren't on the checklist when your sorting out the
"missus to be" are they?. One thinks of other factors a bit more at the
time)
--
Tony Sayer

"tony sayer" wrote in message
...
My experience from living with a pair of 57's for a number of years is
very different from your description. For all their defects, they are
the closest I have come to speakers that sound like windows opening
onto the concert hall. (The music sounds like it is coming through
rather then from the speakers.)


When the originating signal is right.. Then thats the experience I get
--
Tony Sayer


"The window in the wall" was the expression used by
Peter Walker himself. It is not however original.
PW borrowed it from PG Voigt who used it in a paper
entitled "A controversial idea from England"
published by Audio Engineering.

Decca made a direct to disc recording for Quad which was used by
Peter Walker for his personal demonstrations up until his death. On
completion of the project, he invited the recording team to dinner at
his house in Regent's Park Terrace London. We took with us one of
eight acetates of the direct to disc project, and after dinner PW
played our work to us on his Quad ELS powered by a 303 amplifier.
His listening room was larger than the total floor area of most
semi-detached houses. It truly was an incredibly lifelike
listening experience.

Iain