New to ML

[abomwell]

Hello everyone! I'm a newbie to the forum and awaiting arrival of ESL-11a's. I've been an audiophile for many moons and owned dozens of speakers of every type including Maggie's, Acoustats, Sanders, and Janszens, all of which are electrostatic, as well as many others. I've never owned ML speakers until now. I have a question regarding the curvilinear ESL. If the front of the panel, being curved, spreads the sound waves to allow for a wider sweet spot, is it reasonable to assume the rear wave is the opposite, that is it's more focused and beamy than how a flat panel would launch the rear wave? If that were the case it would seem to be a huge advantage. Assuming the speakers are toed inwards somewhat the rear wave would reflect off the front wall and away from the primary listening position and thus take a long time before reaching the listening chair. Does that make sense?

Thanks!
Al

 

[Big Dog RJ]

G'day Al,
Greetings from Aus down unda and welcome aboard! After owning those previous ststs, it's about high time you had ML's! They're incredible stats. Did you ever own Quad ESL's before? You'll find ML's to be superior.

Regarding your question on the rear wave, that's an excellent question! You're right, with regards to the wave patters at the rear. In fact, adding to this much narrowed rear wave pattern, there's a 10 millisecond delay for the rear wave. This is crucial in getting the placement right. Therefore, bring the 11A's further away from the front wall, as to perfectly allow for this 10ms delay. That distance is critical! If it's too close to the wall, there will be LF boom or overhang, and you don't want that.

When you look at the front of the stat panel although it's curved, which is referred to as a controlled dispersion pattern, with dipoles the same amount of energy is equal at the front and back, so there's no loss of energy at the rear. The rear wave being slightly narrow or flat rather than curved, allows for proper dispersion of this millisecond delay... if not it would be all over the place.

With the perfect distance, you will have a wide open 3D holographic soundstage, one that has plenty of depth and brilliant transparency! It will be so palpable where you can reach out and touch the musicians. So, when adjusting this front wall to stat panel distance, you can adjust this like a camera lense, and at one point everything snaps into focus.

From there onwards, it's a marvellous thing!

BTW, what amplifiers are you using?

The Impression 11A"s are beautiful stats, one of ML's real vfm hybrids. Cheers, and enjoy those fine tunes!
Woof! RJ

 

[abomwell]

G'day Al,
Greetings from Aus down unda and welcome aboard! After owning those previous ststs, it's about high time you had ML's! They're incredible stats. Did you ever own Quad ESL's before? You'll find ML's to be superior.

Regarding your question on the rear wave, that's an excellent question! You're right, with regards to the wave patters at the rear. In fact, adding to this much narrowed rear wave pattern, there's a 10 millisecond delay for the rear wave. This is crucial in getting the placement right. Therefore, bring the 11A's further away from the front wall, as to perfectly allow for this 10ms delay. That distance is critical! If it's too close to the wall, there will be LF boom or overhang, and you don't want that.

When you look at the front of the stat panel although it's curved, which is referred to as a controlled dispersion pattern, with dipoles the same amount of energy is equal at the front and back, so there's no loss of energy at the rear. The rear wave being slightly narrow or flat rather than curved, allows for proper dispersion of this millisecond delay... if not it would be all over the place.

With the perfect distance, you will have a wide open 3D holographic soundstage, one that has plenty of depth and brilliant transparency! It will be so palpable where you can reach out and touch the musicians. So, when adjusting this front wall to stat panel distance, you can adjust this like a camera lense, and at one point everything snaps into focus.

From there onwards, it's a marvellous thing!

BTW, what amplifiers are you using?

The Impression 11A"s are beautiful stats, one of ML's real vfm hybrids. Cheers, and enjoy those fine tunes!
Woof! RJ

Many thanks, RJ, for the kind welcome. No I never had Quads...wish I did. My amp will be a Benchmark AHB2 which I see ML has used at a show with the ESL-11a's.

I can pull the speakers out about 51" from the front wall given my room size and listening position which will delay the rear wave about 8ms. Not ideal I know. But if, in fact, the rear wave is very narrow it will be reflected away from the listening position and futher delayed as it bounces off the side and rear walls before reaching the listening chair. I guess I'll see how it works out.

Al

 

[Big Dog RJ]

Hey Al, how's it going...

Actually 51" from that front wall is fine, it's better than 41". That's still a pretty good distance to obtain good depth, and that 3D imaging ML stats are capable of.

The Benchmark Amp seems fine, although I've not had any direct experience with this brand. It's main duty is to drive the stat panels, and not the LF section. Therefore, as long as it can handle that impedence swing of stats, it will be fine.

Keep in touch and do let us know how it turns out.
Cheers, RJ

 

[abomwell]

Hey Al, how's it going...

Actually 51" from that front wall is fine, it's better than 41". That's still a pretty good distance to obtain good depth, and that 3D imaging ML stats are capable of.

The Benchmark Amp seems fine, although I've not had any direct experience with this brand. It's main duty is to drive the stat panels, and not the LF section. Therefore, as long as it can handle that impedence swing of stats, it will be fine.

Keep in touch and do let us know how it turns out.
Cheers, RJ

Thanks, RJ.

The speakers are scheduled to arrive on the 18th. I'll place them about where my Spatial Audio X5's are currently located which works well in my room. They are open baffle dipoles. I ordered the ARC kit so there will be a bit of a learning curve to deal with but I'm looking forward to it.

Art Noxon from ASC (Acoustic Sciences Corp) recommends ideally placing subs 29% of all the room's dimensions, length, width and height. 51" is that distance from the front wall so, as I said, that's where I'll place them initially. They will be 3' from the side walls.

The Benchmark is very quiet and almost doubles it's power going from 8 to 4 ohms, and again going to 2 ohms. At 4 ohms it puts out about 200 watts with almost vanishing distortion.

My room is heavily treated with a full carpet, large tapestry on the rear wall, and floor-to-ceiling corner bass traps in three corners. The 4th corner has a 5' French door which is located behind and left of the listening position. Currently there are 2" diffuser panels located at the first reflection points behind the speakers. The first sidewall reflections are deflected away from the listening position.

Regards,
Al

 

[twich54]

Welcome Al, all sounds good with your setup, I'm sure the 18th can't get here quick enough !

 

[Big Dog RJ]

Good one Al,

Certainly looks like you've got a plan... stick to it, and do the initial placements only as guidelines. Once that's settled for a while (over several months) you'll begin to realise the room's characteristics and how it gells with the system gear. After a while, only you will be able to determine the best placement options because it's your room and not any of ours!

Therefore, your ears and listening habits are the ultimate judge, not anyone else's. So keep in mind that after initial placement it won't be optimal, hence you will be changing positioning down the line, with finer adjustments and tweaks along the way. I reckon a good 3 - 6 months, and you'll be able to determine the optimal placement. So take your time.

The ARC software is certainly a useful tool but it's not the ultimate, and on certain calibrated settings you may not even like it. Whereas at one point during these experiments, your ears will tell you what it likes! That's the most important tool, not ARC or any other software.

Anyway, see how it goes, I'm sure it's going to be an interesting journey ahead.
Cheers, RJ

 

[abomwell]

Good one Al,

Certainly looks like you've got a plan... stick to it, and do the initial placements only as guidelines. Once that's settled for a while (over several months) you'll begin to realise the room's characteristics and how it gells with the system gear. After a while, only you will be able to determine the best placement options because it's your room and not any of ours!

Therefore, your ears and listening habits are the ultimate judge, not anyone else's. So keep in mind that after initial placement it won't be optimal, hence you will be changing positioning down the line, with finer adjustments and tweaks along the way. I reckon a good 3 - 6 months, and you'll be able to determine the optimal placement. So take your time.

The ARC software is certainly a useful tool but it's not the ultimate, and on certain calibrated settings you may not even like it. Whereas at one point during these experiments, your ears will tell you what it likes! That's the most important tool, not ARC or any other software.

Anyway, see how it goes, I'm sure it's going to be an interesting journey ahead.
Cheers, RJ

That's sage advice, RJ. Thanks!

My experience of over 50 years in this hobby has shown me that moving speakers 6" can change the sound more than any electronics.

I just finished a great book by John Culshaw about how Decca made that monumental recording of Wagner's Ring cycle back in the late 50's and early 60's. He made a point of saying how they moved the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra a couple feet here and there around the recording studio over many weeks to find the best sound before beginning the recording process. It's very much like we do with loudspeakers in our rooms isn't it?

I'm not new to room correction having used Behringer, Tact, Lyngdorf, and DSPeaker. And you are correct...they can help but they are not the total solution, and can't make up for a poor setup.

Al

 

[MisterB]

Greetings, Al! Fellow 11A owner here. I hope you love yours as much as I love mine. Give them a little time to break in. They just keep getting better.

 

[abomwell]

Greetings, Al! Fellow 11A owner here. I hope you love yours as much as I love mine. Give them a little time to break in. They just keep getting better.

Thanks, MisterB.

I found a pair of 11a's that were returned to the dealer after only 2 months. The owner exchanged them for the 13a's. So they are already broken and essentially new.

I should also mention that my room is almost square (14.75' x 15.25') which creates a double mode and is anything but ideal. The 5' open doorway in one corner helps but room correction is important to me because of this. The ARC will be a big help I suspect. The opposing double woofer design of the 11a's will help eliminate bass comb filtering, as I understand it, but won't affect room modes. My current open baffle speakers have dipole bass down to 35Hz where they cross over to two ML Depth i subs located in opposite room corners. Dipole woofers mitigate lateral room modes somewhat. So my bass is actually pretty smooth dispute the problematic room. I'm especially interested in the clarity and low distortion of electrostatic midrange. That's why I am giving the ML's a try.

My previous experience with ESL's have been excellent but for some limitations: In the case of the Sanders 10C it was the tight sweet spot; the Acoustat Monitors lacked deep bass and we're huge; the Janszens didn't offer the spaciousness off dipoles because the rear wave was absorbed. I'm hoping the ML's, will give me the best of all worlds .

Cheers,
Al

 

[Lightloopy]

Welcome- Also another 11A owner. Takes at least 3 -4 months to settle in. After that experiment with placement-a lot.
Check out the video posted by ttocs in recent Impressions setup post. Enjoy

 

[abomwell]

QUOTE="Lightloopy, post: 201478, member: 4555"]
Welcome- Also another 11A owner. Takes at least 3 -4 months to settle in. After that experiment with placement-a lot.
Check out the video posted by ttocs in recent Impressions setup post. Enjoy
[/QUOTE]

Thanks, Lightloopy.

The video is very interesting!! One thing I didn't understand was why he said dipole speakers are more placement sensitive to side to side movements vs. front to back movements. I watched that part twice to be sure I didn't hear it wrong. I would think the opposite is true since dipoles create a lateral null and not much sound is projected sideways. Can anyone here explain this?

Thanks!
Al