What are you working on now?
Hello again Mark,
After multiple tweaks and panel upgrades, I’ve finally reached Nirvana with my beam splitter ESL’s so no changes planned for those. However, I am contemplating a simpler design to post on my website because my current designs are intimidating for anyone not equipped for the woodwork and I think most people prefer to use a single amplifier anyway.
Also, I’m thinking about a slightly smaller, more commercially viable design to build (only occasionally) and sell on Etsy when I retire (I’ll be 64 in Sept). This speaker would use a wood lattice segmented wire stator with either a passive crossover or built in DSP and class D amp powering the woofer. I haven’t drawn up anything yet. Etsy is more of a niche market for those looking for something different or artistic -- and I would focus a lot on the woodwork to fit that niche.
I know how to build an active bi-amp’d system but, with practically no electronics experience, I have no idea how to build a passive crossover for an ESL. In order make it work the driver(s) must have a relatively stable impedance and I don’t know how to build a circuit to tame the ESL’s impedance.
Contrary to popular belief, it’s WAY MORE DIFFICULT to design passive system than an active one. Even if you know how to do it, you could spend months dialing it in, as each component interacts with all others to affect gain and phasing. In fact, a 2nd order filter shifts phasing so much that swapping the leads to invert the phasing actually brings the phasing back closer to correct! I can’t imagine how you’d get the woofer/panel phasing right. This is a big reason I admire ML designs so much-- it's HARD to do!
I wish someone with the smarts to do it would author a how-to guide for ESL passive crossovers. Or maybe team up with me on a design-- any volunteers?