Patrick Turner wrote:
Andre Jute wrote:
I trashed the screed I wrote because Mike said it all. This is smart;
they're John's speakers, so only the sound at his listening chair
matters. If John wants a benchmark, independent of a listening
position, a good measuring distance for '57s is also the minimum
listening position of two meters, two long paces. (1) It would probably
be smart to raise the bottom rail of the '57 at least 14in off the
floor; it might still need tilting back; stacks of paperback books are
handy. For years I kept mine on a steamer trunk (full of books, zero
resonance) with the bottom rail 24in off the floor which put the sound
level with my ears when seated in an office chair with my feet up on
pouffe. Alligning '57s correctly can account for an amazing amount of
"lost" SPL restored to your ears.
You may be right here about the alignment & positioning, which I ddn't mention
in my reply on the subject.
I read your instructions for doing it the hard way with interest,
Patrick. Oinkerton Pork Butcher will be proud of you for the way that
post drains the glee from the audio hobby -- just like an engineer!
That's a brilliant exposition of why I generally don't bother to do
that job (if you don't want to do it right, don't do it at all),
trusting my ears instead. For those tempted to cholerics, my ears are
trained by having owned stats from when they first appeared when I was
a teenager and by having wasted my life sitting in concerts in the
finest concert halls to which the shareholders (that's your pension
fund) flew me in the company jet.
But at 3 or 4 metres which would be possible in the large rooms of the rich people
who mainly bought ESL57, the height may not matter if the path to the ears is
uncluttered.
With Quad ESL, either of the types here under discussion, anyone with
experience of them will be hard put to think of a situation in which
elevation or tilt does not improve the sound. (Mike? Phil? Astound me
with something I've overlooked.) You see, Patrick, even a genius like
Peter Walker had his blind spot. In the case of the ESL the "blind
spot" is an altogether too apt pun. It is those bloody grilles, so
stylish on the '57, hidden behind the sock on the '63 but still with
that nasty downward-pointing perforation which directs the sound at the
carpet.
The '57 in fact benefits from being put nearer the ceiling than the
floor, and particularly if inverted for stacking, wants to be raised a
very substantial way. The actress Fay Dunaway has a pair of '57 up
above doortop level near the ceiling of her living room in her Paris
apartment, a super solution.
And do not dipole speakers have queer response due to reflections?
Troll.
My stats have perfect dispersion patterns because only my chair matters
and the room is tuned by dumping amps strategically. EL34 PP amps make
the most mellow roomtuning devices. Seriously, If you sit on-beam to
the '57, that's the sweetest sound you'll ever hear. Do yourself a
favour and give up stereo. Sell your spare '57 or stack the pair in a
custom-made frame. I have a handwritten letter from Peter Walker in my
collection in which he tells someone that he can use any other good
speaker for the fill-in position if he insists on two speakers but that
the best sound will come from a single '57; I owned that single '57 (I
bought it to get the letter) as well as a pair, so I had plenty of
opportunity to test the theory.
Mono is Mama Mia! If-- you gotta have the right speaker and set it up
right. My town house is four stories tall. I stack several ESL63 at the
top and play thrilling music (Esther Lamandier, Emma Kirkby, Gregorian
Chant, Michael Vetter and the Overtone Chior, Piet Kee on the organ,
piano music) while I cook several floors below, using the stairs as a
horn flare for the ESL with room doors on the landings opened or closed
according to the requirement for Helmholz chambers (I just throw in
that bit for the engineers to agonize over -- there are also some
airing cupboards which on this scale is good for finetuning compression
chambers); it's a stunning sound and, at that scale, dispersion pattern
is irrelevant. Everything depends on viewpoint and scale. Nobody forces
you to sit in a chair and listen to music. Great sound is more a
question of putting your mind in gear than spending a lot of money on
this week's fashion-trash.
Patrick Turner.
Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Amps at
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