Electrostatic Panels as Moniitors

  • Thread starter Thread starter JayneDoe
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JayneDoe

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Hi Folks,

I happen to have a set of Acoustat electrostatic speakers (the old ones without subs). I was wondering if these would make a decent set of studio monitors. They are electrostatic panels about four feet tall and eighteen inches wide. They radiate sound from both the front and back. Any suggestions on setting them up would be welcome. - Thanks, JayneDoe
 
There are two major problems with using electrostats for monitoring.

1. They are bipolar. This makes the response extremely room dependent. The front half of the figure eight dispersion pattern, in theory, could be quite advantageous to prevent wall reflections, but you would need to completely absorb the back wave. This would be very difficult to do, since they usually operate down into the 100Hz region.

2. They have limited dynamic range. The sensitivity is determined by the bias voltage, the gap between the grids and the film, and the rigidity of the construction… i.e. there is really not much you can do to improve it. This is a problem with every electrostatic speaker, and nobody yet has figured out a good way around it.

Too bad though. Within their limited operating range elecrostats are very linear.

I wouldn’t recommend using them.

barefoot
 
Thanks

Thanks for your comments, barefoot. I guess I will have to get some dynamics for monitoring at some point.

I have to say that the electrostatics are a very pleasurable speaker for listening when they are set up properly in the room (though the sweet spot can be small). I find that the Acoustats do show a lot of detail and have a good, (but probably not great) dynamic range if you drive them with an amp that can deliver lots of current.

If I remember correctly, the factory curves, show that there is some decent response for between a half and a full octave below 100Hz. The problem is that at those frequencies the impedence curve is diving down toward 2 Ohms.

Thanks Again,
JayneDoe
 
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