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tubes and electrostatics

madwing

madwing

AK Subscriber
Subscriber
how do they combine? i've read that some consoles (grundig, zenith, etc.) sometimes came with electrostatic panels, so the idea isn't new. i picked up (free!) a set of crown es-212 speakers (including the woofer cabinets), and wonder if it's worth trying to get them into the house to listen with tubes. or do they need more power than the 12-20 watts (more or less) a tube amp is going to send their way?
 
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I don't know the crown es-212 that you're talking about but I know that tubes mate very well with Quad ESL-57 speakers. Hope you post up some pics if/when you get them.
 
jcmjrt said:
I don't know the crown es-212 that you're talking about but I know that tubes mate very well with Quad ESL-57 speakers. Hope you post up some pics if/when you get them.
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i've got 'em. i put a thread up in the speakers forum: http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=167869

i will, at some point, put up nudies, as well as (a) better picture(s).

given they lack bass below 350 Hz or so, i am thinking of trying to integrate them into my pilot system (with the 15" jensen woofers) as mid/high drivers. crown made a smaller version es-14 with 4 panels, and i was thinking i might make smaller versions that fit into my pilot console cabinets using the crowns as source parts (i know, heresy, but there it is). the big driver is jensen, the the rest are quams, and nothing special, really.

has anyone tried such a thing? i have the schematics of both the es-212 and the es-14.
 
Hey Madwing ,I have a pair of hybrid Janszens electrostats ,you should know that electrostats cause a broad swing in amplifier output ,you should look for a amp that is stable at 4 ohms ,I have tried many amps on my stats ,found so far a sansui au-9500 was the best by far for driving these speakers,my fisher 500 will drive them but it gets very hot doing it and the results of ,not as good as the sansui,have tried carver,denon,sansui b series ,pioneer with poor results,have read that many of the nad amps do well with electrostats,and also note next week we are setting up the electrostats at are mini fest and will be tryin some other amps on these ,check back for results.
 
wilke87 said:
Hey Madwing ,I have a pair of hybrid Janszens electrostats ,you should know that electrostats cause a broad swing in amplifier output ,you should look for a amp that is stable at 4 ohms ,I have tried many amps on my stats ,found so far a sansui au-9500 was the best by far for driving these speakers,my fisher 500 will drive them but it gets very hot doing it and the results of ,not as good as the sansui,have tried carver,denon,sansui b series ,pioneer with poor results,have read that many of the nad amps do well with electrostats,and also note next week we are setting up the electrostats at are mini fest and will be tryin some other amps on these ,check back for results.
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We will throw the Allens (75 w/ch tube) at them and see how they do. Might turn out to be an interesting combination.

RC
 
Madwing, your ES-212s are hybrid 'stats with large passive woofers integrated through the crossover. I always wanted a set but never got to afford them back then.

I'd suggest you consider using an electronic crossover to drive a set of tube amps for the 'stats and SS for the woofer. This will take some engineering of your own, of course.

The thing about the Crowns ES systems was that they were pretty inefficient, IIRC. Seems to me that they didn't consider it a problem given the DC300s they marketed.

As for 'stats and tubes, that's a no-brainer. I'm running a set of Quad ESL63s with a Mac MC-225 as I write this. I do run them on the 4 ohm tap, however, for the best sonic presentation.

Cheers,

David
 
wilke87 said:
Hey Madwing ,I have a pair of hybrid Janszens electrostats ,you should know that electrostats cause a broad swing in amplifier output ,you should look for a amp that is stable at 4 ohms ,I have tried many amps on my stats ,found so far a sansui au-9500 was the best by far for driving these speakers,my fisher 500 will drive them but it gets very hot doing it and the results of ,not as good as the sansui,have tried carver,denon,sansui b series ,pioneer with poor results,have read that many of the nad amps do well with electrostats,and also note next week we are setting up the electrostats at are mini fest and will be tryin some other amps on these ,check back for results.
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that is interesting. i look forward to hearing about the shootout.

i found this quote on the quadesl.org site, discussing their amps: "Generally valve amps are not upset by an awkward load as presented by the '57, but many solid-state amplifiers quickly give up in a cloud of smoke." (christian steingruber, http://www.quadesl.org/Amplifiers/amplifiers.html). so i have higher hopes for my pilot 232 amp than any solid state amp i have (sansui 9090 and pioneer sa-7100). thanks, and please do put up the electrostat/amp comparison:thmbsp:

rc, you can always throw those allens across the country...maybe not, that iron is pretty heavy :)

and david, do you think they'd do ok as is with the power of a pilot sa-232? i don't know much about crossovers to design one for the kind of setup your describing (i am a dilettante with vintage stereo, and enjoy it for the music, really); it would even take quite a bit of skull sweat to try the "mid/high tweeters into pilot cabinet" idea i had...

i'll have to study the schematic some more, and see if i can figure myself a way out of it into something else.

thanks, all.
bill
 
The first question I'd ask is about the size of your room, madwing. This will pretty much determine whether the Pilot is up to the job. Any amp can drive any speaker, IMHO, but the results may not be appropriate your your environment.

I mentioned the bi-amping idea mainly due to the way the Crown speakers are set up inside. The thing is that you'll need to know some information about them like the crossover frequency and the relative efficiencies of both the woofer in its cabinet and the 'stat tweeters. Then you'd need to dial that into a crossover. There's a Behringer 2-way stereo crossover that's pretty inexpensive if you _really_ want to go that way - less than $100 or so, I think.

One other thing to consider, here: The 'stat panels may need to be rebuilt. If they're all-original, this is a real possibility. Also the high voltage power supply filter caps will likely need similar attention. Its a reality of 'stats, I afraid.

Cheers,

David
 
Tubes and Electrostatics can be truly amazing when combined. Its a match made in heaven. The biggest problem is that you need a huge tube amp to drive them. I wouldn't try it with less than about 150 WPC, and even that it barely enough.

Electrostatics are so inefficient that a twenty watt tube amp wont play much above about 70dB.
 
Efficiency depends entirely on the electrostatics being used. These are definitely not in the category of a quad or Martin-Logan (full sheet electrostatics).

These are likely arrays of the small rectangular or square elements. These don't need a whole lot of amplifier power, especially if you plan on driving them separately. Most likely Crown used Janzens or RTRs. These rarely need more than 3 to 5 watts per element unless you are using original crossovers. When spec'ed higher, it is normally just to make sure you don't cause problems with an underpowered SS amp.

The crossovers are typically where the inefficiency lies, in part to allow you to drive woofers with one amp. Just remember that many of these electrostatics can have really funky impedance curves, especially approaching 20 KHz. If you are driving them separately, you might want to compare the 2 ohm and 4 ohm taps. Unlike a SS amp, with tubes you shouldn't have to worry about clipping (which easily kills the elements) or low impedance overloading or killing the amp.
 
Crown, which has the schematic and a sales flyer on their website, recommends 75 watts maximum for the ES-212 so you should be able to enjoy them a modest levels with the tube amps. So give it a try and let us know.
 
goldear said:
Tubes and Electrostatics can be truly amazing when combined. Its a match made in heaven. The biggest problem is that you need a huge tube amp to drive them. I wouldn't try it with less than about 150 WPC, and even that it barely enough.

Electrostatics are so inefficient that a twenty watt tube amp wont play much above about 70dB.
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That is not necessarily true. Quad ESL57s are electrostatic and require only about 15WPC...as the amp that was designed to go with it by Quad...the Quad II. I don't know about his crowns but you can't generalize that all electrostatics need large amounts of power.
 
Congrats, madwing, awesome score! :thmbsp: I just posted a bit ago in the speaker forum, about finding some small electrostats yesterday myself. Nothing like your Quads, I'm sure, but still pretty nice-sounding. I'm getting kinda excited now, about trying tubes & electrostats together, seems a few folks around here think it works well. :D
 
spaceman said:
Congrats, madwing, awesome score! :thmbsp: I just posted a bit ago in the speaker forum, about finding some small electrostats yesterday myself. Nothing like your Crowns, I'm sure, but still pretty nice-sounding. I'm getting kinda excited now, about trying tubes & electrostats together, seems a few folks around here think it works well. :D
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yup... gotta finish my pilot amp so i can bring them in the house and try the speaks properly!
 
I own a pair of ESS AMT-1As which are similar to electrostats in the Heil being a ribbon tweeter. They are rated at 300 watts peak but sound great with a 50-60 watt tube amp. 20 watts would drive them but not to any loud level without soon reaching the limit of the 20 watt amp. Biamping might be the way to go. High and mid frequency drivers require far less power than bass drivers of course.

Lar
 
they are provisioned for bi-amping.

hmm. a nice rebuilt tube amp running the mids/highs through a sansui 9090 (faux preamp), with the sansui's amp stage running the woofers?
 
Hi Ya Bill!
Dude, you got so much goin' on I can't keep up. Thanks for this thread, I've got the Pilot SA-232 as you know, still waiting to be gone through, the power bug bit me and I'm bidding on a biggish Luxman SS amp. I'll know tomorrow if it's gonna be mine. Since my 'Logans are hybrids and, unforunately, can't be bi-amped, I'll have to wait to give ya'll my take when the Pilot gets it's first redo in 50yrs. I heard the M-Ls with an old Scott of unknown model# and condition, all the usual tube sound adjectives coupled with the spooky M-L midrange was melting into the couch yummy:thmbsp: The Lux is supposed to have a very tube-like sound, I know that's not the same. And since I haven't heard it, I'm flyin' blind, and bidding on a whim:scratch2::D Out of being curious, what is the wpc on an EL84 SA-232?

Craig
 
Just for information, Magnepan says that the ~350Hz crossover will require about equal power top and bottom. But biamping will be nice.
 
jcmjrt said:
That is not necessarily true. Quad ESL57s are electrostatic and require only about 15WPC...as the amp that was designed to go with it by Quad...the Quad II. I don't know about his crowns but you can't generalize that all electrostatics need large amounts of power.
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I've never tried Quads, so I can't speak to them. But I do have experience with Acoustats and Martin-Logans. Those big pannels require _lots_ of power.
 
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