Quote Originally Posted by pixelthis
I was just curious about the average knowledge of your average electrostat fan...
Well, I'm glad I passed your test.

I'll be the first to agree that some electrostats can be finicky and are not the most practical kind of speaker. I have to adjust the bias on mine virtually every time I listen as the ideal setting depends upon both temperature and humidity. Too much and you hear a sizzling sound. Not enough and you lose efficiency. My previous Acoustats beamed severely which meant that it was a one person speaker. While the image was wonderful in the sweet spot, it changed rather drastically once you moved. The current Sound Labs, by contrast, are a four-person-across speaker devoid of that intrinsic beaming.

On the other hand, their resolution and utter coherency is unmatched. The ability to duplicate the complex timbres found in music. What makes them the ideal microphone does translate to the other end of the reproduction chain. I was listening last night to Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music. On the "Weekend in the Country" cut, you could hear precisely where the four primary vocalists stood on the stage, both laterally and depthwise. Which makes me wonder why you think electrostats image poorly. As for reviews, here are a few I found with a range of different makes:

Innersound

The Eros Mk.IIIs' best quality was their first-rate imaging: They generated a seamless, wall-to-wall soundstage that did not seem to emanate from the speakers themselves. The first track on David Hudson's Didgeridoo Spirit (CD, Indigenous Australia IA2003 D) opens with sounds of a rainforest, complete with a soft rain falling, exotic birds chirping, and wind rustling through the leaves. I heard so much new information over the Eroses that I was startled.

Martin-Logan

Well, I'll tell you first what impressed me about the CLS. Stereo imagery was spectacularly precise. Not only were instruments and voices hung in space between and behind the speakers—which quite disappear—with both a natural perspective and unexaggerated size, but the way in which that perspective and the instrumental balance continually shift as the recording engineers play with the mixing desk was ruthlessly laid bare.

Quad

Image width excelled, with rock-stable specificity and needle-sharp focus in the far lateral field. Dispersion in the US Monitor was generous—it became possible to move around without losing the stereo image (no pinpoint "sweet spot"!). Two people (who no longer need to be Siamese Twins) sitting side-by-side could easily experience the speaker's superb imaging.

Quad 989

The ESL-989s' imaging was topnotch, conveying a seamless, wall-to-wall soundstage that did not seem to emanate from the speakers themselves. They captured the soundstage depth and width of "Naris," from Patricia Barber's Blue Café (CD, Premonition/Blue Note 5 21810 2). Percussion was open, airy, fast, and transparent. José Carreras in Misa Criolla was startling, his soft tenor in the foreground, a large, muted drum playing deep and to the left of center stage, backed up by the large, distant chorus. The perspective was spacious and eerie, suggesting the desolation and emptiness of a high South American plateau. Suzanne Vega seemed to materialize between the two ESLs, close enough to touch, as she sang "Tom's Diner," from Solitude Standing (CD, A&M CD 5136).

Sound Lab

Imaging from the A-3s is spectacular! With a mono source, the "image" remains tightly bunched between the speakers, with no perceptible wander either with changes of pitch or lateral changes of listening position, and this translates into almost incredible image specificity and stability from stereo sources. This is, in fact, the first electrostatic system I have heard which allows me to move from end to end of my listening sofa to the other (a distance of about two meters) without the "stage" position shifting almost entirely to one speaker and becoming, essentially, monophonic. As you might surmise, there is virtually no vertical venetian-blind effect from the Sound-Lab speakers.

More Sound Lab

Unnecessary? Perhaps, but so then are Ferraris. They're clearly not for everyone. On the other hand, I've yet to hear a multi-way dynamic speaker truly disappear before me like they do.

rw