Dave- For the record...

I have owned the latest Quad electrostatic speakers continuously since
1974. Currently we have one "all Quad" 988 based system (I prefer it
to the 2905) set in the house, along with a pair of Hill Plasmatronics
1A's, and two sets of Gale GS401's right now- one chrome, one walnut
finished. I have visited the Quad factory three times and was once
offered a job by Peter Walker. Also a member of a number of
professional audio groups, and personally taught TEF operation by Dick
Heyser. Dick hated Quads by the way- once destroyed his favorite
amplifier. Suffice to say I do appreciate Quad even if Dick did not.

I have also owned a set of Yamaha NS1000's. Not a superb speaker, but
an excellent speaker. Nice resale value as I recall. Most of the
mastering engineers in Hollywood dangled a tissue over the tweeters as
I recall back in their heyday.

Getting past the "toaster" comments, the reason the Gales have an
excellent midrange is the Peerless driver they used is optimized in
the crossover- there's some serious audio engineering that transpired
in the design. The crossover points are outside the vocal
bandwidth. The list of speakers that don't crossover between 400 and
4 kHz is a very short one indeed.

I've never actually read where Quad specified their crossover point
between the bass and treble panels- likely because it was within the
vocal range and would damper the "perfect midrange" commentary.
Difficult to measure the high voltage bias. I'll sweep them and
measure it acoustically one of these days.

P.S. The Gales use twin EIGHT inch drivers are run in parallel and
perform nicely at the low end.

On 12/11/2011 17:22, wrote:
Dave- For the record...

I have owned the latest Quad electrostatic speakers continuously since
1974. Currently we have one "all Quad" 988 based system (I prefer it
to the 2905) set in the house, along with a pair of Hill Plasmatronics
1A's, and two sets of Gale GS401's right now- one chrome, one walnut
finished. I have visited the Quad factory three times and was once
offered a job by Peter Walker. Also a member of a number of
professional audio groups, and personally taught TEF operation by Dick
Heyser. Dick hated Quads by the way- once destroyed his favorite
amplifier. Suffice to say I do appreciate Quad even if Dick did not.

I have also owned a set of Yamaha NS1000's. Not a superb speaker, but
an excellent speaker. Nice resale value as I recall. Most of the
mastering engineers in Hollywood dangled a tissue over the tweeters as
I recall back in their heyday.

Getting past the "toaster" comments, the reason the Gales have an
excellent midrange is the Peerless driver they used is optimized in
the crossover- there's some serious audio engineering that transpired
in the design. The crossover points are outside the vocal
bandwidth. The list of speakers that don't crossover between 400 and
4 kHz is a very short one indeed.

I've never actually read where Quad specified their crossover point
between the bass and treble panels- likely because it was within the
vocal range and would damper the "perfect midrange" commentary.
Difficult to measure the high voltage bias. I'll sweep them and
measure it acoustically one of these days.

P.S. The Gales use twin EIGHT inch drivers are run in parallel and
perform nicely at the low end.

If you're so good, why is your circuit diagram wrong?

--
Eiron.

( Heavy weight name dropping deleted, to protect those underneath ... )

I have also owned a set of Yamaha NS1000's. Not a superb speaker, but
an excellent speaker.

** Psuedo poetic drivel.


Getting past the "toaster" comments, the reason the Gales have an
excellent midrange is the Peerless driver they used is optimized in
the crossover- there's some serious audio engineering that transpired
in the design. The crossover points are outside the vocal
bandwidth.


** Where is the " vocal bandwidth " defined ??

The spectrum of human voices, speaking or singing, ranges all the way from
70Hz up to 20kHz.

If you disconnect the woofer and tweeter from any good 3 way system, what is
left sounds like a telephone.


I've never actually read where Quad specified their crossover point
between the bass and treble panels- likely because it was within the
vocal range and would damper the "perfect midrange" commentary.

** The ESL57 was 3 way, while the ESL63 and later designs have no actual
crossover points - the six concentric drive rings are fed with full
bandwidth. The upper and lower 'bass" units are filtered -6dB oct at a few
hundred Hz.

In the ESL57, the responses of the panels roll off at only 6 db per octave
and overlap in the crossover regions resulting in an audibly seamless
result. Transient response test signals ( ie 4 cycle tone bursts ) are
reproduced perfectly at *any frequency* in the range from 65Hz to 18kHz. I
have done such testing myself.



.... Phil

In article , Phil Allison
wrote:


** The ESL57 was 3 way, while the ESL63 and later designs have no actual
crossover points - the six concentric drive rings are fed with full
bandwidth.

The shorted turns included in the inductors of the transmission lines,
combined with the power drawn by the inner elements mean that the HF level
presented to the outer elements is reduced.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

In article
,
wrote:
Getting past the "toaster" comments, the reason the Gales have an
excellent midrange is the Peerless driver they used is optimized in
the crossover- there's some serious audio engineering that transpired
in the design. The crossover points are outside the vocal
bandwidth. The list of speakers that don't crossover between 400 and
4 kHz is a very short one indeed.

400hz to 4 Khz is approx telephone quality. It may be the most important
part of the speech band for intelligibility, but it's nothing like the
whole 'vocal bandwidth'.

--
*24 hours in a day ... 24 beers in a case ... coincidence? *

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

wrote in message
...
Another cool website dedicated to Ira Gale and his products-
speakers, that futuristic turntable, even his recordings are available
at this site:

http://www.galeaudio.com


Yes I do, in fact I sold them during my time as a hi-fi dealer. And very
nice they were too!

Plowman- whip out a spectrum analyzer and check your statement.

I think you'll find at least 95% of the energy is within that
bandwidth.

On Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:38:19 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

Plowman- whip out a spectrum analyzer and check your statement.

I think you'll find at least 95% of the energy is within that
bandwidth.

My vocal range, from bass notes to sibilants is about 70Hz to over
20kHz.Where 95% of the energy lies is another question entirely.

d

In article
,
wrote:
Plowman- whip out a spectrum analyzer and check your statement.

I prefer my ears.

I think you'll find at least 95% of the energy is within that
bandwidth.

Don't give a stuff where the energy is. 400 to 4k is approx telephone
bandwidth. If you think that produces lifelike speech quality you need new
ears.

--
*Why are they called apartments, when they're all stuck together? *

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

On 23/11/2011 22:34, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article
,
wrote:
Plowman- whip out a spectrum analyzer and check your statement.

I prefer my ears.

I think you'll find at least 95% of the energy is within that
bandwidth.

Don't give a stuff where the energy is. 400 to 4k is approx telephone
bandwidth. If you think that produces lifelike speech quality you need new
ears.

Those Gales have tweeters as well. :-)
I think the point was that the crossover frequency was a bit higher than
other speakers.

--
Eiron.