[Patrick Turner]

Some of you may have been following my reported progress
with trying to build a pair of ER Audio ESL-IIIB kits
which were purchased by a customer of mine from
http://www.eraudio.com.au/index.html

I have had the job of "assembling" these kits to a satisfactory level of
operation.

I got started back in about February this year and could not proceed as
quickly as
planned because of difficulties encountered resulting from the poor
design of the kits.

Before people think I have no prowess at building kits or speakers or
amplifiers, just take a look at
my website at http://www.turneraudio.com.au and compare the amount of
information and depth
of understanding compared with the all too brief techno info at the ER
Audio site.
At the ER site there is no proper electronic schematic for the ESL3B as
it should be, no impedance
measurements, and no measured performance data.
These should be stated with ESL, because some amps will NOT be able to
drive the ER speakers,
whereas the speakers at my site are all easily drivable, and everyone
knows about SEAS
drivers being OK, so nothing I have made is any worse than the best
speakers made with SEAS drivers such as Sonus Faber and
Vienna Acoustic. I gurantee a flat full range response, ER don't
gurantee anything.

I have now overcome most of the ERA problems; I was not warned by
anything at the ER Audio site.

Here is the history so far of what happened, and it includes process
details and
some solutions worth remembering.

The kit was supplied with spacers already glued to the 1,200mm x 550mm
frames for the 3 panel
speaker.
8 of the 12 machine screws riveted to the 12 stator plates were too
long, and I had to cut them down with a Dremel tool
to 6mm. Failure to notice if the screws are too long will result in a
completely stuffed panel,
because the stators frames won't press down flat properly onto the
frames they are glued into
with polyurethane glue.

The only real mistake I made was with the first attempt to stretch a
membrane of the 3.5uM gossamer thin
mylar membrane. It is just so delicate! It was easy to tear using tape
and a spring balance
for sequential tensioning.
And sure enough it tore, and I had to begin again, and the second
attempt went perfectly until I glued the
first frame with its stators in place onto the surface of the stretched
out membrane using super glue.

Unfortunately, a pin hole of invisible size allowed super glue to seep
through to the bench underneath,
and the membrane was ruined as I lifted the panel off the bench.
Its easy to sand it off the frame and clean up to do it again.

Could practice make perfect? I was about to learn....

Use of superglue as recommended in the ERA 33 pages of kit instructions
was abandoned!!!

I sanded down the surface of the MDF sheet I was using as the bench top
with very fine 600 grade
wet and dry sandpaper to remove whatever might have caused a damn
pinhole.
The bench sits on top of a heavy oak dining table I built 31 years ago
from thick oak planks.
( I don't have dinner parties anymore,
and the accoutrements of a gentleman have more productive uses these
days )

The third membrane went fine when I stretched it, and I used the
polyurethane glue
to glue to the frame after painting on the glue thinly to the plastic
frame.

I learnt that the easiest way to weigh down the frame on top of the
membrane already
stretched out on the perfectly flat solid bench is with about 24 house
bricks.

After lowering the frame with wet glue onto the membrane, cover the
frame with a damp
towel. The moisture in the towel will ensure the polyurethane glue cures
well in 24 hours.
Place the bricks on top of the towel gently without allowing the frame
to slide around.
When all bricks are placed, gently go to each prick and press down hard
with
about 20Kg in turn, and this will help remove air bubbles in the glue.
The towel prevents brick particles falling into the speaker panel.

You need to be very clean about everything with the construction; I used
my loungeroom
because of the good lights, and clean environment.

Next day I very carefully cut around the edge of the membrane and I had
a perfect looking
membrane when I lifted the bricks and towel away and lifted the frame.

The conductive strip of copper foil was placed on the second frame and
there were no problems.
This self adhesive strip 4.5m wide by about 0.2mm thick is actually the
foil
they use around bits of glass used in leadlighting windows, and is
easily available.
DON'T drill the 4.5mm dia holes for the 12 x 4mm dia plastic bolts too
close to spacer edges
or else the membrane will not glue to the spacer properly and will begin
a tear at the hole.

If you don't understand this, you will have torn membranes, and need to
relocate
bolt holes, after filling up wrong ones, and this is a PITA.....

I applied the high resistance coating to the membrane. All seemed to go
OK
but I used twice more than recomended, and Rob Mackinlay from ER later
said I shouldn't use too much.

After waiting a week for the coating to cure, I completed the basic
assembly with supplied
plastic bolts and plastic surrounds and I had a basically completed
speaker, but without
the timber surround or box for electronics underneath.

The kit does not include any surround timber frame or box, and one is
left to make all that oneself,
its rather like being given a speaker kit with drivers but without a
box.

I can only imagine the terrible attempts being made by amateur
audiophiles who have no
carpentry or joinery making skills or tools.
You won't want to see their speakers pictured on the Web.

Then came time to hook up the input transformer and build the not
supplied board for a suitable
cross over for the speakers.
I designed and built the un-supplied crossover and required board.

The electronic parts supplied were a regulated LV dc power supply which
can be
adjusted for its dc level. This then feeds a supplied EHT supply which
converts the sub 10Vdc to
up to about -5.5kV for application to the membrane.
The EHT supply is connected with -EHT voltage taken to the copper foil
strip around the frames
and the ground terminal of the EHT supply is taken to the CT of the SUT
secondary.

The SUT is supplied, but has half the core size and half the primary
turns really needed for
saturation proof operation.

I have advised ER Audio with full details of an alternative design for
their transformer,
and i look forward to them addopting my recomendations.

The supplied SUT has far too thin P to S insulation, resulting in 390pF
of shunt capacitance
appearing across the secondary, which transforms to massive 3.16uF at
the primary.
The treble panel has 100pF capacitance which transforms to 0.81uF,
and the total input capacitance seen by the amplifier = 4uF,
( about twice what Quad ESL57 managed ).

The bass panel capacitance of 800pF transforms to 6.5uF at the primary,
but the series resistance
prevents this much C ever being experienced as a load on the amp, so
bass panel C is quite entirely benign.

I tried a very basic crossover network about which I will have more to
say,
and hooked up the speaker and tranny to an amplifier capable of 21Vrms
max into a
high Z load, and up to 70 watts into 3 ohms, 14.5Vrms.
Output Z was 0.2 ohms, BW 7Hz to 30kHz, 2 ohms connected at low levels,
and THD 0.2% at max po into 8 ohms, 50 watts, 18Vrms, and mainly class
A with a
quad of mosfets.

I turned on the EHT and gradually increased the EHT until I heard all
kinds of spluttery spittery sounds
and saw numerous blue discharges occuring all over the panels. I backed
off immediately
until the noises stopped and conducted sound tests using pink noise and
test gear as described in my
speaker building pages at
http://www.turneraudio.com.au/loudspeakers-diy.html

Then I began testing the responses at 1M, 2M ,4M distances at a 1.2M off
floor level, on axis, with the
speaker taped temporarily to a stout dining chair I also built 31 years
ago.
Bottom of the speaker is 450mm above the floor, speaker is vertical.

I got a truly appalling response.

The sensitivity seemed appallingly low.
For the same quite low level of pink noise, I needed maybe 5 times the
voltage I'd need for my own Sublimes
shown at http://www.turneraudio.com.au/loudspeakers-new.html

The power handling was atrocious, and LF capablity suffered from arcing
and distortions.
My customer visted me in the middle of testing and was not impressed at
all.
We talked about quitting, but I ain't no bloody quitter.

I obtained the loan of a high impedance HV probe to measure up to 20kV
safely,
and found that any EHT increase above 2.2kV cause horrid discharge noise
and premature clipping.
ESL sensitivity is about proportional to applied EHT voltage, and I
wanted to be able to apply
5,000V if possible, like ESL57 and ESL63.

I then thought that the arcing seen must be because the poor insulation
qualities of
the black powder coating on the suplied stators.
So I stripped off membrane No 3, and coated all the stators
with two generous coats of anti corona paint, Isonel 642,
and put on a new membrane No 4 but with two very thin conductive coats
on the membrane,
this time using the right total amount and to get an even coating.

I also placed in the pattern of 10 anti resonance silicone pads but that
made no difference
to following results.

I re-tested after the rebuild and curing times, and although there was
not such a lot of arcing and EHT leakage, the response and problems were
quite
unacceptable. I turned off the EHT supply, and considered using more
membrane tension
of 2Kg / 60mm of side length, not the low 0.8Kg recommended.
ESL63 use 2.5Kg for the same material.
Lots of crackling noises continued for minutes after turn off of the EHT
and after the
voltage had rapidly fallen to 0V.
It was the membrane partially releasing from its stuck position.

When I unbolted the two halves of the speaker the next day after the
dismal tests,
I found that about 70% of the area of both bass membranes
had become glued to the stators on the side away from that where the
membrane is coated.
I was able to gently prise the membrane off the starors with a bit of
bent copper wire
poked through slots in the stators.
Anti corona paint is slightly sticky with mylar.

No wonder I had such horrible test results. But it had taken two
attempts before I became aware of the
problem and I guess that EVERY SILLY MAN WHO TRIES TO USE ABOVE ABOUT
3KV
will have what I call membrane "stiction" problems.
There are posts I've seen in these silly little private forums where
they all bull**** to each other
of guys cranking up the EHT and I believe they don't realize
their problems. With stuck membranes, the speakers still work at mid &
treble, but
poorly, and definitely not as intended, and with queer bass.

Back to my drawing board I went, and at this point I didn't think it
would be wise to consult
ER Audio for advice, and I posted on these groups to see if anyone else
had had problems.

One Collin Topps of the UK answered my initial posts to groups in
private emails
which began cordially, but ended rudely. Collin is the UK ERA sales rep.
He said repeatedly nobody has had any problems building ER Audio panels.
He refused to accept that I was having serious bothers, or offer any
advice that was relevant and useful.
Then he ended up telling me to sod off, and I thought that this
technically dumb salesman
in the UK acting for ER Audio as their sales agent has
some basic things about public relations he has yet to learn.

He'd sure never get a job selling anything I made.

I continued to post on the panels and learn more about ESL construction
from other ESL amateur productions around the world.

Since then, I decided that the membrane must not be allowed to
travel too close to a stator, ideally not more than half the actual
distance
between membrane and stator surface, so if this is 4mm, as it is in
ESL57 bass panels,
then 2mm is enough maximum movement distance. Quad achive this by using
2mm thick PVC plastic sheeting for bass stators, with conductive stator
material being conductiove paint on the outside of the perforated
plastic sheeting.
So the membrane CANNOT move more than 2mm and cannot be less than 2mm
away from the stator
surface.
The of force of electrostatic attraction increases proportionally to 1/d
squared,
so if d is only a few thousanths of an inch,
F becomes huge.
No wonder my ERA membranes were sticking like cling wrap around a
pumpkin at the grocer.

The bass panel membrane to stator distance in ERA panels is 2.4mm.
I thought that if I applied about 0.8mm of non conductive material to
the inside surface of the stator,
It would keep the membrane getting too close to a stator, and the extra
tension
would always overcome the force caused by the EHT without signal.
I'd have 1.6mm for membrane movement, not as much as in a Quad speaker,
but enough.

So I applied four coats of silicone paint made from roof and gutter
silicone sealant
bought for $5 per tube at a plumber's store.
To coat all the stators for one speaker I used 1.3 tubes of silicone,
and about
600ml of white spirit for thinning.
The thinning is done by using a small cheap brush with dabbing action in
a clean tuna fish can
until the paint has thick honey consistency and no visible lumps.
The silicone is applied by dabbing action with the brush laid flat on
the perforated steel sheeting,
not letting silicone close off perforation holes.
It self levels fairly well, and partially wraps around the sharp metal
edges of the holes in the stators,
so probably enhances air flow caused by sound waves.

24 hours is fine between coats of silicone. It sticks well to the anti
corona paint I already have on the stators.

The silicone becomes rubbery, and smooth surfaced, even though some
uneveness
of this coating thickness occurs, but basically, I got the right amount
of
goop applied to all stator surfaces.

I finally stretched membrane No 5 last week and have re-assembled the
speaker
for a new test.

After the frame was first glued to the stretched and much tighter
membrane,
I still found the membrane tended to stick to the stator if pressed over
to it gently by hand.
So I then bought a small can of Johnson's Baby Powder and squirted in a
lot of powder through perforations,
and with an air blower, blew it all around everywhere.
Then i sucked off the excess woth a gentle vacuum cleaner.
On the opposite second frame and stators, i just dusted the powder on
and
removed excess with vacuum.
The panel was then re-assembled.

Did my ingenuity prevent the problems I was having?

After connection of the speaker to the amp and without signal, I raised
the EHT and
at 3.2kV while I watched the bass membranes carefully I saw them whip
over to a stator and remain hard against it.
Hmm, same old problem.
However, when i reduced EHT, the membrane let go without all the
crackling
sounds they'd made previously after turn off of the EHT supply.
The powdered layer of rubber was doing the right kind of trick in
preventing
stiction.

I was able to leave the EHT on all night at 3kV, but just occasionally,
some
small click noise would occur, so i have settled on having 2.7kV as the
maximum EHT voltage
which could be safely applied to these panels before problems would
occur.

I began to seriously test the speaker response and do serious
comparisons again
with my own blameless Sublimes.
They sit side by side, and comparisons can be fairly made, same room,
200Cubic metres,
well out from a wall, well damped etc.
The same amps, test signal, test gear and mic is used to eliminate any
chance
of making an unfair comparison.

Finally, I got the speakers to measure +/- 2dB between LF pole = 35Hz
and HF pole = 22kHz,
and to give as flat a response as I could get without adding
a ridiculous number of crossover compensation networks.

This response was measured at 3M with mic 800mm above the floor, and
about exactly
how they will be listened to in my customer's room, which is not quite
as good as my own,
but measurement of his existing speaker response has been little
different to what i get
in my rooms. If I get speakers to sound well here, they always travel
well.

My impressions with the sound with music is good, but the 50 watt class
A amps I have been using
for trials run completely out of headroom at only modest levels equal to
about
1/3 watt average into my Sublimes which are 5.6 ohms average, and have
88dB/W/M watt sensitivity.

After numerous calculations, I figured I needed 5 times the applied
voltage for the same SPL
with ERA panels compared to my own speakers.
At least a 100 watt amp would be needed for quite modest levels of
sound,
not because 100 watts would ever be generated, but merely
to get enough voltage.
Collin Tops said he was using an SET amp with 16 watts only,
and maybe he likes quietspeakers.

But I prefer loudspeakers.

And for these ERA quietspeakers, there is not the slightest bit of
speaker protection circuitry included
as it is in Quad ESL63. What is the safe maximum voltage?
not as much as for Quads, that's for sure.
Anyway, I did clip the 50 watt amp a few times when i tried to go loud
with some busy Salsa music from Buena Vista Social Club,
and nothing bad happened, so the 6 coats of goop I have on the stators
seemes to resist arcing.

A 16 watt SET amp with Rout 2ohms would be a horrible thing to drive
such ESL.
There would be a serious HF roll off, but perhaps Collin is an old giza
with stuffed hearing,
and so may not mind if the HF pole = 6kHz.
And without my networks and crossovers, the response could be worse,
peaked up high between
500 and 6kHz, ie, without bass or treble.

He will have to conduct all the same well conducted tests i have done
before he'd ever know WTF he's actually built.
He should not be offended when I say I don't trust what salesmen tell
me.

Nobody from ERA has had the courage to discuss their speakers in the
public forums.

I have just measured the Z, and with the details of networks below got
the following Z figures:-

10Hz, approx 80ohms,
20Hz, 41,
50Hz, 14,
60Hz, 11,
80Hz, 10,
110Hz, 11,
200Hz, 18,
300Hz, 20,
500Hz, 19,
1kHz, 15,
2kHz, 11.5,
10kHz, 5,
20kHz, 3,
40kHz, 2.

If you plot the above points on a graphed sheet of log paper, and
join the dots with gentle curves and you will have the Z.

The average Z between 50Hz and 2kHz = 14 ohms.

Therefore a tube amp set up for a match to 16 ohms will work,
but it'd need to be able to make 30Vrms, which is 64 watts into 14 ohms.
The amount of signal above 2kHz which feeds the low Z average of 5ohms
between 2khz and 20kHz
is small, and as long as the Rout 0.5 ohms there will not be a serious
loss of HF detail.
One of my 8585 tube amplifiers with a quad of KT90 in PP per channel
is powering 3 stacked pairs of ESL57 no problems, even though the Z =
0.6 ohms at 18kHz.

But 16 watts from SET would be hopless, unless you had the speakers so
close they are like
giant ESL headphones.


DO NOT use the recommended circuit resistances so vaguely shown in the
ER instructions.

I found that the best way to hook up the ESL-3B speakers is as follows:-

BEFORE the the input to the primary of the step up transformer, ( SUT
):-
Make a series L + R network of 4mH plus 27 ohms.
Connect this across the P winding.

Connect one end of the P winding to the 0V terminal for the black lead
from the amplifier.
To the other live primary end, connect a series C & R network of 150uF
plus 1.5ohms across to
the speaker terminal to which the red wire from the amp connects.

These two input networks will have several effects.
The 27 ohms plus 4mH makes the input loaded with 27 ohms at low F,
thus damping the low Z of the series 150uF and primary shunt inductance
of 32 mH.
The 150uF will prevent LF entering the speaker and causing the
rather poor quality SUT from saturating all too easily with high
transient LF voltages.
The -3dB cut off is at 50Hz, and the attenuation is second order, barely
enough.
To get better headroom for these speakers, use a second input cap in
series of
100uF, giving -3db at about 100Hz, then use a sub. More signal will be
then applicable
above 100Hz.

The 1.5 ohms adds to the 0.5 ohms of SUT winding resistance which is
important to damp the series resonance
between the awfully high amount of shunt capacitance in the SUT and the
leakage inductance at around 20kHz.
Therefore input resistance is a minimum of 2ohms by 50kHz, so not many
amps should blow up.


AFTER the secondary of the SUT, place the following networks
from each end of sec to the bass panel terminals:-

You will need the following parts,

16 x 100k resistors, metal film, 1%, 2 watt rated.

2 x 0.0033uF capacitors rated at 4kV.
Find good quality polypropylene caps.

To each bass stator, connect 100k to a pair of common points for the
rear and front pairs of bass panels,
Then series 4 x 100k to make 400k from each common point to the
ends of the SUT secondary.

To each treble stator, connect a parallel pair of 100k to make 50k to a
pair of common points
for front and rear stators.
From the common points, connect the 0.0033uF to the sec ends of the SUT.

The 0.0033uF plus 50k form a CR HPF.

MAKE SURE the treble panel with its crossover is REVERSE PHASE CONNECTED
TO THE BASS PANELS.

The -3dB points in the signals in the electronic circuit thus created is
160Hz for bass,
with signal rolling off at 6dB/octave above 160Hz, and 700Hz for the
treble panels, also
rolling off at 6dB/octave.
Keeping pass signals out of the treble panel is a good idea.

The speaker phase shift will be maximally quite large, but maybe under
60degrees,
but I found the treble acoustic signal produced by the bass panels will
affect
the treble panel badly if not phase reversed ( like many other dynamic
speakers ),
and despite the attenuation by the R & C filter LPF effect of bass
series R and the bass panel capacitance
which totals 800pF.
The ONLY way I could flatten the response and remove what was a wide 6dB
dip in the resonse at 5kHz
with reverse phase connections.
This what I measured, and the acoustic response has little corelation to
the signal applied.

I will perhaps draw all the relevant curves of bass and treble signals
applied and
and include all this info at a website page.
I hope to include a schematic of the equivalant LCR model of the the
panels and SUT.
I hope there would be a net positive result amoung builders of ESL.

This should all have a very positive effect on understanding
of what is really involved to make a pair of ESL speakers.
Hopefully, all of what i say will fertilize the minds who created the ER
Audio ESL speakers.

They can scream long and hard at my critique, and i don't give a ****,
their
marketing is quite deceptive, and they say
it'll be easy, and take only so long, but no, its not true,
and they are bull****ting, and the total time I will end up spending on
R&D,
and patching up the mess of the thing they supplied plus do all the
woodwork
will amount to 10 times the time they say.

My customer here was lulled into the project, along with me, under what
now seem like
false statements about the product.

Had I known of all the difficulties and parts quality and non
inclusions, i would never ever
have agreed to my building of one of these kits after my customer bought
it.
He isn't technically minded,
and could NEVER EVER have successfully built a kit from ERA.

If I allowed quite low trade rates of $50 per hour to build these
speakers and fix problems and do R&D,
I would find I would be entitled to claim a payment of maybe $5,000 for
the labour
of building these speakers, plus the cost of supply of items not
included, about $400.
being a gentleman I won't ask more than a fraction of the figure from my
customer,
but frankly, the sooner I see these speakers leaving my workshop, the
better,
and I don't ever want to build another pair that I did not fully design
myself!!!!!

The original kit price was $2,000, and so the whole deal of up $7,400
value
is quite poor value when a fully restored/rebuilt pair of Quad ESL57
could be had for
about $4,000 from one John Hall in Melbourne.

I have a Quad ESL57 which is unrestored and it even outperforms the ERA
on most counts.

How anyone could say the ERA speaker is better product than a Quad ESL57
or ESL63, as some have suggested
is quite beyond me; maybe these people had old speakers with lots of
faults, and replaced them with ERA
because they thought they'd be better.

The other complaint I have about the ESL3B is that its ONE panel, not
two bass with one treble, like ESL2B.
This means that if a membrane tears or ****s up in just one of the 3 sub
panels, the WHOLE
3 subpanels have to be fixed, rather than just fix one of the 3 sub
panels.

There is BS spiel about why the ESL3B is a better than others, but ERA
are pushing the flat ESL3B because
it appears to me the cost of production is less for the less complex
product.
but the repair bills for YOU, the buyer, will always be higher.

All the comparisons one reads make silly one liner statements without
the pages of detailed back ups.

So don't make me waste more time reading your replies which are not
backed up with facts.

Patrick Turner.

[Keith G]

"Patrick Turner" wrote in message
...


Some of you may have been following my reported progress
with trying to build a pair of ER Audio ESL-IIIB kits
which were purchased by a customer of mine from
http://www.eraudio.com.au/index.html

I have had the job of "assembling" these kits to a satisfactory level
of
operation.

I got started back in about February this year and could not proceed
as
quickly as
planned because of difficulties encountered resulting from the poor
design of the kits.

Before people think I have no prowess at building kits or speakers or
amplifiers, just take a look at
my website at http://www.turneraudio.com.au and compare the amount of
information and depth
of understanding compared with the all too brief techno info at the ER
Audio site.
At the ER site there is no proper electronic schematic for the ESL3B
as
it should be, no impedance
measurements, and no measured performance data.
These should be stated with ESL, because some amps will NOT be able to
drive the ER speakers,
whereas the speakers at my site are all easily drivable, and everyone
knows about SEAS
drivers being OK, so nothing I have made is any worse than the best
speakers made with SEAS drivers such as Sonus Faber and
Vienna Acoustic. I gurantee a flat full range response, ER don't
gurantee anything.

I have now overcome most of the ERA problems; I was not warned by
anything at the ER Audio site.

Here is the history so far of what happened, and it includes process
details and
some solutions worth remembering.

The kit was supplied with spacers already glued to the 1,200mm x 550mm
frames for the 3 panel
speaker.
8 of the 12 machine screws riveted to the 12 stator plates were too
long, and I had to cut them down with a Dremel tool
to 6mm. Failure to notice if the screws are too long will result in a
completely stuffed panel,
because the stators frames won't press down flat properly onto the
frames they are glued into
with polyurethane glue.

The only real mistake I made was with the first attempt to stretch a
membrane of the 3.5uM gossamer thin
mylar membrane. It is just so delicate! It was easy to tear using tape
and a spring balance
for sequential tensioning.
And sure enough it tore, and I had to begin again, and the second
attempt went perfectly until I glued the
first frame with its stators in place onto the surface of the
stretched
out membrane using super glue.

Unfortunately, a pin hole of invisible size allowed super glue to seep
through to the bench underneath,
and the membrane was ruined as I lifted the panel off the bench.
Its easy to sand it off the frame and clean up to do it again.

Could practice make perfect? I was about to learn....

Use of superglue as recommended in the ERA 33 pages of kit
instructions
was abandoned!!!

I sanded down the surface of the MDF sheet I was using as the bench
top
with very fine 600 grade
wet and dry sandpaper to remove whatever might have caused a damn
pinhole.
The bench sits on top of a heavy oak dining table I built 31 years ago
from thick oak planks.
( I don't have dinner parties anymore,
and the accoutrements of a gentleman have more productive uses these
days )

The third membrane went fine when I stretched it, and I used the
polyurethane glue
to glue to the frame after painting on the glue thinly to the plastic
frame.

I learnt that the easiest way to weigh down the frame on top of the
membrane already
stretched out on the perfectly flat solid bench is with about 24 house
bricks.

After lowering the frame with wet glue onto the membrane, cover the
frame with a damp
towel. The moisture in the towel will ensure the polyurethane glue
cures
well in 24 hours.
Place the bricks on top of the towel gently without allowing the frame
to slide around.
When all bricks are placed, gently go to each prick and press down
hard
with
about 20Kg in turn, and this will help remove air bubbles in the glue.
The towel prevents brick particles falling into the speaker panel.

You need to be very clean about everything with the construction; I
used
my loungeroom
because of the good lights, and clean environment.

Next day I very carefully cut around the edge of the membrane and I
had
a perfect looking
membrane when I lifted the bricks and towel away and lifted the frame.

The conductive strip of copper foil was placed on the second frame and
there were no problems.
This self adhesive strip 4.5m wide by about 0.2mm thick is actually
the
foil
they use around bits of glass used in leadlighting windows, and is
easily available.
DON'T drill the 4.5mm dia holes for the 12 x 4mm dia plastic bolts too
close to spacer edges
or else the membrane will not glue to the spacer properly and will
begin
a tear at the hole.

If you don't understand this, you will have torn membranes, and need
to
relocate
bolt holes, after filling up wrong ones, and this is a PITA.....

I applied the high resistance coating to the membrane. All seemed to
go
OK
but I used twice more than recomended, and Rob Mackinlay from ER later
said I shouldn't use too much.

After waiting a week for the coating to cure, I completed the basic
assembly with supplied
plastic bolts and plastic surrounds and I had a basically completed
speaker, but without
the timber surround or box for electronics underneath.

The kit does not include any surround timber frame or box, and one is
left to make all that oneself,
its rather like being given a speaker kit with drivers but without a
box.

I can only imagine the terrible attempts being made by amateur
audiophiles who have no
carpentry or joinery making skills or tools.
You won't want to see their speakers pictured on the Web.

Then came time to hook up the input transformer and build the not
supplied board for a suitable
cross over for the speakers.
I designed and built the un-supplied crossover and required board.

The electronic parts supplied were a regulated LV dc power supply
which
can be
adjusted for its dc level. This then feeds a supplied EHT supply which
converts the sub 10Vdc to
up to about -5.5kV for application to the membrane.
The EHT supply is connected with -EHT voltage taken to the copper foil
strip around the frames
and the ground terminal of the EHT supply is taken to the CT of the
SUT
secondary.

The SUT is supplied, but has half the core size and half the primary
turns really needed for
saturation proof operation.

I have advised ER Audio with full details of an alternative design for
their transformer,
and i look forward to them addopting my recomendations.

The supplied SUT has far too thin P to S insulation, resulting in
390pF
of shunt capacitance
appearing across the secondary, which transforms to massive 3.16uF at
the primary.
The treble panel has 100pF capacitance which transforms to 0.81uF,
and the total input capacitance seen by the amplifier = 4uF,
( about twice what Quad ESL57 managed ).

The bass panel capacitance of 800pF transforms to 6.5uF at the
primary,
but the series resistance
prevents this much C ever being experienced as a load on the amp, so
bass panel C is quite entirely benign.

I tried a very basic crossover network about which I will have more to
say,
and hooked up the speaker and tranny to an amplifier capable of 21Vrms
max into a
high Z load, and up to 70 watts into 3 ohms, 14.5Vrms.
Output Z was 0.2 ohms, BW 7Hz to 30kHz, 2 ohms connected at low
levels,
and THD 0.2% at max po into 8 ohms, 50 watts, 18Vrms, and mainly
class
A with a
quad of mosfets.

I turned on the EHT and gradually increased the EHT until I heard all
kinds of spluttery spittery sounds
and saw numerous blue discharges occuring all over the panels. I
backed
off immediately
until the noises stopped and conducted sound tests using pink noise
and
test gear as described in my
speaker building pages at
http://www.turneraudio.com.au/loudspeakers-diy.html

Then I began testing the responses at 1M, 2M ,4M distances at a 1.2M
off
floor level, on axis, with the
speaker taped temporarily to a stout dining chair I also built 31
years
ago.
Bottom of the speaker is 450mm above the floor, speaker is vertical.

I got a truly appalling response.

The sensitivity seemed appallingly low.
For the same quite low level of pink noise, I needed maybe 5 times the
voltage I'd need for my own Sublimes
shown at http://www.turneraudio.com.au/loudspeakers-new.html

The power handling was atrocious, and LF capablity suffered from
arcing
and distortions.
My customer visted me in the middle of testing and was not impressed
at
all.
We talked about quitting, but I ain't no bloody quitter.

I obtained the loan of a high impedance HV probe to measure up to 20kV
safely,
and found that any EHT increase above 2.2kV cause horrid discharge
noise
and premature clipping.
ESL sensitivity is about proportional to applied EHT voltage, and I
wanted to be able to apply
5,000V if possible, like ESL57 and ESL63.

I then thought that the arcing seen must be because the poor
insulation
qualities of
the black powder coating on the suplied stators.
So I stripped off membrane No 3, and coated all the stators
with two generous coats of anti corona paint, Isonel 642,
and put on a new membrane No 4 but with two very thin conductive coats
on the membrane,
this time using the right total amount and to get an even coating.

I also placed in the pattern of 10 anti resonance silicone pads but
that
made no difference
to following results.

I re-tested after the rebuild and curing times, and although there was
not such a lot of arcing and EHT leakage, the response and problems
were
quite
unacceptable. I turned off the EHT supply, and considered using more
membrane tension
of 2Kg / 60mm of side length, not the low 0.8Kg recommended.
ESL63 use 2.5Kg for the same material.
Lots of crackling noises continued for minutes after turn off of the
EHT
and after the
voltage had rapidly fallen to 0V.
It was the membrane partially releasing from its stuck position.

When I unbolted the two halves of the speaker the next day after the
dismal tests,
I found that about 70% of the area of both bass membranes
had become glued to the stators on the side away from that where the
membrane is coated.
I was able to gently prise the membrane off the starors with a bit of
bent copper wire
poked through slots in the stators.
Anti corona paint is slightly sticky with mylar.

No wonder I had such horrible test results. But it had taken two
attempts before I became aware of the
problem and I guess that EVERY SILLY MAN WHO TRIES TO USE ABOVE ABOUT
3KV
will have what I call membrane "stiction" problems.
There are posts I've seen in these silly little private forums where
they all bull**** to each other
of guys cranking up the EHT and I believe they don't realize
their problems. With stuck membranes, the speakers still work at mid &
treble, but
poorly, and definitely not as intended, and with queer bass.

Back to my drawing board I went, and at this point I didn't think it
would be wise to consult
ER Audio for advice, and I posted on these groups to see if anyone
else
had had problems.

One Collin Topps of the UK answered my initial posts to groups in
private emails
which began cordially, but ended rudely. Collin is the UK ERA sales
rep.
He said repeatedly nobody has had any problems building ER Audio
panels.
He refused to accept that I was having serious bothers, or offer any
advice that was relevant and useful.
Then he ended up telling me to sod off, and I thought that this
technically dumb salesman
in the UK acting for ER Audio as their sales agent has
some basic things about public relations he has yet to learn.

He'd sure never get a job selling anything I made.

I continued to post on the panels and learn more about ESL
construction
from other ESL amateur productions around the world.

Since then, I decided that the membrane must not be allowed to
travel too close to a stator, ideally not more than half the actual
distance
between membrane and stator surface, so if this is 4mm, as it is in
ESL57 bass panels,
then 2mm is enough maximum movement distance. Quad achive this by
using
2mm thick PVC plastic sheeting for bass stators, with conductive
stator
material being conductiove paint on the outside of the perforated
plastic sheeting.
So the membrane CANNOT move more than 2mm and cannot be less than 2mm
away from the stator
surface.
The of force of electrostatic attraction increases proportionally to
1/d
squared,
so if d is only a few thousanths of an inch,
F becomes huge.
No wonder my ERA membranes were sticking like cling wrap around a
pumpkin at the grocer.

The bass panel membrane to stator distance in ERA panels is 2.4mm.
I thought that if I applied about 0.8mm of non conductive material to
the inside surface of the stator,
It would keep the membrane getting too close to a stator, and the
extra
tension
would always overcome the force caused by the EHT without signal.
I'd have 1.6mm for membrane movement, not as much as in a Quad
speaker,
but enough.

So I applied four coats of silicone paint made from roof and gutter
silicone sealant
bought for $5 per tube at a plumber's store.
To coat all the stators for one speaker I used 1.3 tubes of silicone,
and about
600ml of white spirit for thinning.
The thinning is done by using a small cheap brush with dabbing action
in
a clean tuna fish can
until the paint has thick honey consistency and no visible lumps.
The silicone is applied by dabbing action with the brush laid flat on
the perforated steel sheeting,
not letting silicone close off perforation holes.
It self levels fairly well, and partially wraps around the sharp metal
edges of the holes in the stators,
so probably enhances air flow caused by sound waves.

24 hours is fine between coats of silicone. It sticks well to the anti
corona paint I already have on the stators.

The silicone becomes rubbery, and smooth surfaced, even though some
uneveness
of this coating thickness occurs, but basically, I got the right
amount
of
goop applied to all stator surfaces.

I finally stretched membrane No 5 last week and have re-assembled the
speaker
for a new test.

After the frame was first glued to the stretched and much tighter
membrane,
I still found the membrane tended to stick to the stator if pressed
over
to it gently by hand.
So I then bought a small can of Johnson's Baby Powder and squirted in
a
lot of powder through perforations,
and with an air blower, blew it all around everywhere.
Then i sucked off the excess woth a gentle vacuum cleaner.
On the opposite second frame and stators, i just dusted the powder on
and
removed excess with vacuum.
The panel was then re-assembled.

Did my ingenuity prevent the problems I was having?

After connection of the speaker to the amp and without signal, I
raised
the EHT and
at 3.2kV while I watched the bass membranes carefully I saw them whip
over to a stator and remain hard against it.
Hmm, same old problem.
However, when i reduced EHT, the membrane let go without all the
crackling
sounds they'd made previously after turn off of the EHT supply.
The powdered layer of rubber was doing the right kind of trick in
preventing
stiction.

I was able to leave the EHT on all night at 3kV, but just
occasionally,
some
small click noise would occur, so i have settled on having 2.7kV as
the
maximum EHT voltage
which could be safely applied to these panels before problems would
occur.

I began to seriously test the speaker response and do serious
comparisons again
with my own blameless Sublimes.
They sit side by side, and comparisons can be fairly made, same room,
200Cubic metres,
well out from a wall, well damped etc.
The same amps, test signal, test gear and mic is used to eliminate any
chance
of making an unfair comparison.

Finally, I got the speakers to measure +/- 2dB between LF pole = 35Hz
and HF pole = 22kHz,
and to give as flat a response as I could get without adding
a ridiculous number of crossover compensation networks.

This response was measured at 3M with mic 800mm above the floor, and
about exactly
how they will be listened to in my customer's room, which is not quite
as good as my own,
but measurement of his existing speaker response has been little
different to what i get
in my rooms. If I get speakers to sound well here, they always travel
well.

My impressions with the sound with music is good, but the 50 watt
class
A amps I have been using
for trials run completely out of headroom at only modest levels equal
to
about
1/3 watt average into my Sublimes which are 5.6 ohms average, and have
88dB/W/M watt sensitivity.

After numerous calculations, I figured I needed 5 times the applied
voltage for the same SPL
with ERA panels compared to my own speakers.
At least a 100 watt amp would be needed for quite modest levels of
sound,
not because 100 watts would ever be generated, but merely
to get enough voltage.
Collin Tops said he was using an SET amp with 16 watts only,
and maybe he likes quietspeakers.

But I prefer loudspeakers.

And for these ERA quietspeakers, there is not the slightest bit of
speaker protection circuitry included
as it is in Quad ESL63. What is the safe maximum voltage?
not as much as for Quads, that's for sure.
Anyway, I did clip the 50 watt amp a few times when i tried to go loud
with some busy Salsa music from Buena Vista Social Club,
and nothing bad happened, so the 6 coats of goop I have on the stators
seemes to resist arcing.

A 16 watt SET amp with Rout 2ohms would be a horrible thing to drive
such ESL.
There would be a serious HF roll off, but perhaps Collin is an old
giza
with stuffed hearing,
and so may not mind if the HF pole = 6kHz.
And without my networks and crossovers, the response could be worse,
peaked up high between
500 and 6kHz, ie, without bass or treble.

He will have to conduct all the same well conducted tests i have done
before he'd ever know WTF he's actually built.
He should not be offended when I say I don't trust what salesmen tell
me.

Nobody from ERA has had the courage to discuss their speakers in the
public forums.

I have just measured the Z, and with the details of networks below got
the following Z figures:-

10Hz, approx 80ohms,
20Hz, 41,
50Hz, 14,
60Hz, 11,
80Hz, 10,
110Hz, 11,
200Hz, 18,
300Hz, 20,
500Hz, 19,
1kHz, 15,
2kHz, 11.5,
10kHz, 5,
20kHz, 3,
40kHz, 2.

If you plot the above points on a graphed sheet of log paper, and
join the dots with gentle curves and you will have the Z.

The average Z between 50Hz and 2kHz = 14 ohms.

Therefore a tube amp set up for a match to 16 ohms will work,
but it'd need to be able to make 30Vrms, which is 64 watts into 14
ohms.
The amount of signal above 2kHz which feeds the low Z average of 5ohms
between 2khz and 20kHz
is small, and as long as the Rout 0.5 ohms there will not be a
serious
loss of HF detail.
One of my 8585 tube amplifiers with a quad of KT90 in PP per channel
is powering 3 stacked pairs of ESL57 no problems, even though the Z =
0.6 ohms at 18kHz.

But 16 watts from SET would be hopless, unless you had the speakers so
close they are like
giant ESL headphones.


DO NOT use the recommended circuit resistances so vaguely shown in the
ER instructions.

I found that the best way to hook up the ESL-3B speakers is as
follows:-

BEFORE the the input to the primary of the step up transformer, ( SUT
):-
Make a series L + R network of 4mH plus 27 ohms.
Connect this across the P winding.

Connect one end of the P winding to the 0V terminal for the black lead
from the amplifier.
To the other live primary end, connect a series C & R network of 150uF
plus 1.5ohms across to
the speaker terminal to which the red wire from the amp connects.

These two input networks will have several effects.
The 27 ohms plus 4mH makes the input loaded with 27 ohms at low F,
thus damping the low Z of the series 150uF and primary shunt
inductance
of 32 mH.
The 150uF will prevent LF entering the speaker and causing the
rather poor quality SUT from saturating all too easily with high
transient LF voltages.
The -3dB cut off is at 50Hz, and the attenuation is second order,
barely
enough.
To get better headroom for these speakers, use a second input cap in
series of
100uF, giving -3db at about 100Hz, then use a sub. More signal will be
then applicable
above 100Hz.

The 1.5 ohms adds to the 0.5 ohms of SUT winding resistance which is
important to damp the series resonance
between the awfully high amount of shunt capacitance in the SUT and
the
leakage inductance at around 20kHz.
Therefore input resistance is a minimum of 2ohms by 50kHz, so not many
amps should blow up.


AFTER the secondary of the SUT, place the following networks
from each end of sec to the bass panel terminals:-

You will need the following parts,

16 x 100k resistors, metal film, 1%, 2 watt rated.

2 x 0.0033uF capacitors rated at 4kV.
Find good quality polypropylene caps.

To each bass stator, connect 100k to a pair of common points for the
rear and front pairs of bass panels,
Then series 4 x 100k to make 400k from each common point to the
ends of the SUT secondary.

To each treble stator, connect a parallel pair of 100k to make 50k to
a
pair of common points
for front and rear stators.
From the common points, connect the 0.0033uF to the sec ends of the
SUT.

The 0.0033uF plus 50k form a CR HPF.

MAKE SURE the treble panel with its crossover is REVERSE PHASE
CONNECTED
TO THE BASS PANELS.

The -3dB points in the signals in the electronic circuit thus created
is
160Hz for bass,
with signal rolling off at 6dB/octave above 160Hz, and 700Hz for the
treble panels, also
rolling off at 6dB/octave.
Keeping pass signals out of the treble panel is a good idea.

The speaker phase shift will be maximally quite large, but maybe under
60degrees,
but I found the treble acoustic signal produced by the bass panels
will
affect
the treble panel badly if not phase reversed ( like many other dynamic
speakers ),
and despite the attenuation by the R & C filter LPF effect of bass
series R and the bass panel capacitance
which totals 800pF.
The ONLY way I could flatten the response and remove what was a wide
6dB
dip in the resonse at 5kHz
with reverse phase connections.
This what I measured, and the acoustic response has little corelation
to
the signal applied.

I will perhaps draw all the relevant curves of bass and treble signals
applied and
and include all this info at a website page.
I hope to include a schematic of the equivalant LCR model of the the
panels and SUT.
I hope there would be a net positive result amoung builders of ESL.

This should all have a very positive effect on understanding
of what is really involved to make a pair of ESL speakers.
Hopefully, all of what i say will fertilize the minds who created the
ER
Audio ESL speakers.

They can scream long and hard at my critique, and i don't give a ****,
their
marketing is quite deceptive, and they say
it'll be easy, and take only so long, but no, its not true,
and they are bull****ting, and the total time I will end up spending
on
R&D,
and patching up the mess of the thing they supplied plus do all the
woodwork
will amount to 10 times the time they say.

My customer here was lulled into the project, along with me, under
what
now seem like
false statements about the product.

Had I known of all the difficulties and parts quality and non
inclusions, i would never ever
have agreed to my building of one of these kits after my customer
bought
it.
He isn't technically minded,
and could NEVER EVER have successfully built a kit from ERA.

If I allowed quite low trade rates of $50 per hour to build these
speakers and fix problems and do R&D,
I would find I would be entitled to claim a payment of maybe $5,000
for
the labour
of building these speakers, plus the cost of supply of items not
included, about $400.
being a gentleman I won't ask more than a fraction of the figure from
my
customer,
but frankly, the sooner I see these speakers leaving my workshop, the
better,
and I don't ever want to build another pair that I did not fully
design
myself!!!!!

The original kit price was $2,000, and so the whole deal of up $7,400
value
is quite poor value when a fully restored/rebuilt pair of Quad ESL57
could be had for
about $4,000 from one John Hall in Melbourne.

I have a Quad ESL57 which is unrestored and it even outperforms the
ERA
on most counts.

How anyone could say the ERA speaker is better product than a Quad
ESL57
or ESL63, as some have suggested
is quite beyond me; maybe these people had old speakers with lots of
faults, and replaced them with ERA
because they thought they'd be better.

The other complaint I have about the ESL3B is that its ONE panel, not
two bass with one treble, like ESL2B.
This means that if a membrane tears or ****s up in just one of the 3
sub
panels, the WHOLE
3 subpanels have to be fixed, rather than just fix one of the 3 sub
panels.

There is BS spiel about why the ESL3B is a better than others, but ERA
are pushing the flat ESL3B because
it appears to me the cost of production is less for the less complex
product.
but the repair bills for YOU, the buyer, will always be higher.

All the comparisons one reads make silly one liner statements without
the pages of detailed back ups.

So don't make me waste more time reading your replies which are not
backed up with facts.

Patrick Turner.


**** me..!!??

Shouldn't you be out on your bike somewhere...??

[bassett[_2_]]

"Keith G" wrote in message
...

"Patrick Turner" wrote in message
...


Some of you may have been following my reported progress
with trying to build a pair of ER Audio ESL-IIIB kits
which were purchased by a customer of mine from
http://www.eraudio.com.au/index.html

I have had the job of "assembling" these kits to a satisfactory level of
operation.

I got started back in about February this year and could not proceed as
quickly as
planned because of difficulties encountered resulting from the poor
design of the kits.

Before people think I have no prowess at building kits or speakers or
amplifiers, just take a look at
my website at http://www.turneraudio.com.au and compare the amount of
information and depth
of understanding compared with the all too brief techno info at the ER
Audio site.
At the ER site there is no proper electronic schematic for the ESL3B as
it should be, no impedance
measurements, and no measured performance data.
These should be stated with ESL, because some amps will NOT be able to
drive the ER speakers,
whereas the speakers at my site are all easily drivable, and everyone
knows about SEAS
drivers being OK, so nothing I have made is any worse than the best
speakers made with SEAS drivers such as Sonus Faber and
Vienna Acoustic. I gurantee a flat full range response, ER don't
gurantee anything.

I have now overcome most of the ERA problems; I was not warned by
anything at the ER Audio site.

Here is the history so far of what happened, and it includes process
details and
some solutions worth remembering.

The kit was supplied with spacers already glued to the 1,200mm x 550mm
frames for the 3 panel
speaker.
8 of the 12 machine screws riveted to the 12 stator plates were too
long, and I had to cut them down with a Dremel tool
to 6mm. Failure to notice if the screws are too long will result in a
completely stuffed panel,
because the stators frames won't press down flat properly onto the
frames they are glued into
with polyurethane glue.

The only real mistake I made was with the first attempt to stretch a
membrane of the 3.5uM gossamer thin
mylar membrane. It is just so delicate! It was easy to tear using tape
and a spring balance
for sequential tensioning.
And sure enough it tore, and I had to begin again, and the second
attempt went perfectly until I glued the
first frame with its stators in place onto the surface of the stretched
out membrane using super glue.

Unfortunately, a pin hole of invisible size allowed super glue to seep
through to the bench underneath,
and the membrane was ruined as I lifted the panel off the bench.
Its easy to sand it off the frame and clean up to do it again.

Could practice make perfect? I was about to learn....

Use of superglue as recommended in the ERA 33 pages of kit instructions
was abandoned!!!

I sanded down the surface of the MDF sheet I was using as the bench top
with very fine 600 grade
wet and dry sandpaper to remove whatever might have caused a damn
pinhole.
The bench sits on top of a heavy oak dining table I built 31 years ago
from thick oak planks.
( I don't have dinner parties anymore,
and the accoutrements of a gentleman have more productive uses these
days )

The third membrane went fine when I stretched it, and I used the
polyurethane glue
to glue to the frame after painting on the glue thinly to the plastic
frame.

I learnt that the easiest way to weigh down the frame on top of the
membrane already
stretched out on the perfectly flat solid bench is with about 24 house
bricks.

After lowering the frame with wet glue onto the membrane, cover the
frame with a damp
towel. The moisture in the towel will ensure the polyurethane glue cures
well in 24 hours.
Place the bricks on top of the towel gently without allowing the frame
to slide around.
When all bricks are placed, gently go to each prick and press down hard
with
about 20Kg in turn, and this will help remove air bubbles in the glue.
The towel prevents brick particles falling into the speaker panel.

You need to be very clean about everything with the construction; I used
my loungeroom
because of the good lights, and clean environment.

Next day I very carefully cut around the edge of the membrane and I had
a perfect looking
membrane when I lifted the bricks and towel away and lifted the frame.

The conductive strip of copper foil was placed on the second frame and
there were no problems.
This self adhesive strip 4.5m wide by about 0.2mm thick is actually the
foil
they use around bits of glass used in leadlighting windows, and is
easily available.
DON'T drill the 4.5mm dia holes for the 12 x 4mm dia plastic bolts too
close to spacer edges
or else the membrane will not glue to the spacer properly and will begin
a tear at the hole.

If you don't understand this, you will have torn membranes, and need to
relocate
bolt holes, after filling up wrong ones, and this is a PITA.....

I applied the high resistance coating to the membrane. All seemed to go
OK
but I used twice more than recomended, and Rob Mackinlay from ER later
said I shouldn't use too much.

After waiting a week for the coating to cure, I completed the basic
assembly with supplied
plastic bolts and plastic surrounds and I had a basically completed
speaker, but without
the timber surround or box for electronics underneath.

The kit does not include any surround timber frame or box, and one is
left to make all that oneself,
its rather like being given a speaker kit with drivers but without a
box.

I can only imagine the terrible attempts being made by amateur
audiophiles who have no
carpentry or joinery making skills or tools.
You won't want to see their speakers pictured on the Web.

Then came time to hook up the input transformer and build the not
supplied board for a suitable
cross over for the speakers.
I designed and built the un-supplied crossover and required board.

The electronic parts supplied were a regulated LV dc power supply which
can be
adjusted for its dc level. This then feeds a supplied EHT supply which
converts the sub 10Vdc to
up to about -5.5kV for application to the membrane.
The EHT supply is connected with -EHT voltage taken to the copper foil
strip around the frames
and the ground terminal of the EHT supply is taken to the CT of the SUT
secondary.

The SUT is supplied, but has half the core size and half the primary
turns really needed for
saturation proof operation.

I have advised ER Audio with full details of an alternative design for
their transformer,
and i look forward to them addopting my recomendations.

The supplied SUT has far too thin P to S insulation, resulting in 390pF
of shunt capacitance
appearing across the secondary, which transforms to massive 3.16uF at
the primary.
The treble panel has 100pF capacitance which transforms to 0.81uF,
and the total input capacitance seen by the amplifier = 4uF,
( about twice what Quad ESL57 managed ).

The bass panel capacitance of 800pF transforms to 6.5uF at the primary,
but the series resistance
prevents this much C ever being experienced as a load on the amp, so
bass panel C is quite entirely benign.

I tried a very basic crossover network about which I will have more to
say,
and hooked up the speaker and tranny to an amplifier capable of 21Vrms
max into a
high Z load, and up to 70 watts into 3 ohms, 14.5Vrms.
Output Z was 0.2 ohms, BW 7Hz to 30kHz, 2 ohms connected at low levels,
and THD 0.2% at max po into 8 ohms, 50 watts, 18Vrms, and mainly class
A with a
quad of mosfets.

I turned on the EHT and gradually increased the EHT until I heard all
kinds of spluttery spittery sounds
and saw numerous blue discharges occuring all over the panels. I backed
off immediately
until the noises stopped and conducted sound tests using pink noise and
test gear as described in my
speaker building pages at
http://www.turneraudio.com.au/loudspeakers-diy.html

Then I began testing the responses at 1M, 2M ,4M distances at a 1.2M off
floor level, on axis, with the
speaker taped temporarily to a stout dining chair I also built 31 years
ago.
Bottom of the speaker is 450mm above the floor, speaker is vertical.

I got a truly appalling response.

The sensitivity seemed appallingly low.
For the same quite low level of pink noise, I needed maybe 5 times the
voltage I'd need for my own Sublimes
shown at http://www.turneraudio.com.au/loudspeakers-new.html

The power handling was atrocious, and LF capablity suffered from arcing
and distortions.
My customer visted me in the middle of testing and was not impressed at
all.
We talked about quitting, but I ain't no bloody quitter.

I obtained the loan of a high impedance HV probe to measure up to 20kV
safely,
and found that any EHT increase above 2.2kV cause horrid discharge noise
and premature clipping.
ESL sensitivity is about proportional to applied EHT voltage, and I
wanted to be able to apply
5,000V if possible, like ESL57 and ESL63.

I then thought that the arcing seen must be because the poor insulation
qualities of
the black powder coating on the suplied stators.
So I stripped off membrane No 3, and coated all the stators
with two generous coats of anti corona paint, Isonel 642,
and put on a new membrane No 4 but with two very thin conductive coats
on the membrane,
this time using the right total amount and to get an even coating.

I also placed in the pattern of 10 anti resonance silicone pads but that
made no difference
to following results.

I re-tested after the rebuild and curing times, and although there was
not such a lot of arcing and EHT leakage, the response and problems were
quite
unacceptable. I turned off the EHT supply, and considered using more
membrane tension
of 2Kg / 60mm of side length, not the low 0.8Kg recommended.
ESL63 use 2.5Kg for the same material.
Lots of crackling noises continued for minutes after turn off of the EHT
and after the
voltage had rapidly fallen to 0V.
It was the membrane partially releasing from its stuck position.

When I unbolted the two halves of the speaker the next day after the
dismal tests,
I found that about 70% of the area of both bass membranes
had become glued to the stators on the side away from that where the
membrane is coated.
I was able to gently prise the membrane off the starors with a bit of
bent copper wire
poked through slots in the stators.
Anti corona paint is slightly sticky with mylar.

No wonder I had such horrible test results. But it had taken two
attempts before I became aware of the
problem and I guess that EVERY SILLY MAN WHO TRIES TO USE ABOVE ABOUT
3KV
will have what I call membrane "stiction" problems.
There are posts I've seen in these silly little private forums where
they all bull**** to each other
of guys cranking up the EHT and I believe they don't realize
their problems. With stuck membranes, the speakers still work at mid &
treble, but
poorly, and definitely not as intended, and with queer bass.

Back to my drawing board I went, and at this point I didn't think it
would be wise to consult
ER Audio for advice, and I posted on these groups to see if anyone else
had had problems.

One Collin Topps of the UK answered my initial posts to groups in
private emails
which began cordially, but ended rudely. Collin is the UK ERA sales rep.
He said repeatedly nobody has had any problems building ER Audio panels.
He refused to accept that I was having serious bothers, or offer any
advice that was relevant and useful.
Then he ended up telling me to sod off, and I thought that this
technically dumb salesman
in the UK acting for ER Audio as their sales agent has
some basic things about public relations he has yet to learn.

He'd sure never get a job selling anything I made.

I continued to post on the panels and learn more about ESL construction
from other ESL amateur productions around the world.

Since then, I decided that the membrane must not be allowed to
travel too close to a stator, ideally not more than half the actual
distance
between membrane and stator surface, so if this is 4mm, as it is in
ESL57 bass panels,
then 2mm is enough maximum movement distance. Quad achive this by using
2mm thick PVC plastic sheeting for bass stators, with conductive stator
material being conductiove paint on the outside of the perforated
plastic sheeting.
So the membrane CANNOT move more than 2mm and cannot be less than 2mm
away from the stator
surface.
The of force of electrostatic attraction increases proportionally to 1/d
squared,
so if d is only a few thousanths of an inch,
F becomes huge.
No wonder my ERA membranes were sticking like cling wrap around a
pumpkin at the grocer.

The bass panel membrane to stator distance in ERA panels is 2.4mm.
I thought that if I applied about 0.8mm of non conductive material to
the inside surface of the stator,
It would keep the membrane getting too close to a stator, and the extra
tension
would always overcome the force caused by the EHT without signal.
I'd have 1.6mm for membrane movement, not as much as in a Quad speaker,
but enough.

So I applied four coats of silicone paint made from roof and gutter
silicone sealant
bought for $5 per tube at a plumber's store.
To coat all the stators for one speaker I used 1.3 tubes of silicone,
and about
600ml of white spirit for thinning.
The thinning is done by using a small cheap brush with dabbing action in
a clean tuna fish can
until the paint has thick honey consistency and no visible lumps.
The silicone is applied by dabbing action with the brush laid flat on
the perforated steel sheeting,
not letting silicone close off perforation holes.
It self levels fairly well, and partially wraps around the sharp metal
edges of the holes in the stators,
so probably enhances air flow caused by sound waves.

24 hours is fine between coats of silicone. It sticks well to the anti
corona paint I already have on the stators.

The silicone becomes rubbery, and smooth surfaced, even though some
uneveness
of this coating thickness occurs, but basically, I got the right amount
of
goop applied to all stator surfaces.

I finally stretched membrane No 5 last week and have re-assembled the
speaker
for a new test.

After the frame was first glued to the stretched and much tighter
membrane,
I still found the membrane tended to stick to the stator if pressed over
to it gently by hand.
So I then bought a small can of Johnson's Baby Powder and squirted in a
lot of powder through perforations,
and with an air blower, blew it all around everywhere.
Then i sucked off the excess woth a gentle vacuum cleaner.
On the opposite second frame and stators, i just dusted the powder on
and
removed excess with vacuum.
The panel was then re-assembled.

Did my ingenuity prevent the problems I was having?

After connection of the speaker to the amp and without signal, I raised
the EHT and
at 3.2kV while I watched the bass membranes carefully I saw them whip
over to a stator and remain hard against it.
Hmm, same old problem.
However, when i reduced EHT, the membrane let go without all the
crackling
sounds they'd made previously after turn off of the EHT supply.
The powdered layer of rubber was doing the right kind of trick in
preventing
stiction.

I was able to leave the EHT on all night at 3kV, but just occasionally,
some
small click noise would occur, so i have settled on having 2.7kV as the
maximum EHT voltage
which could be safely applied to these panels before problems would
occur.

I began to seriously test the speaker response and do serious
comparisons again
with my own blameless Sublimes.
They sit side by side, and comparisons can be fairly made, same room,
200Cubic metres,
well out from a wall, well damped etc.
The same amps, test signal, test gear and mic is used to eliminate any
chance
of making an unfair comparison.

Finally, I got the speakers to measure +/- 2dB between LF pole = 35Hz
and HF pole = 22kHz,
and to give as flat a response as I could get without adding
a ridiculous number of crossover compensation networks.

This response was measured at 3M with mic 800mm above the floor, and
about exactly
how they will be listened to in my customer's room, which is not quite
as good as my own,
but measurement of his existing speaker response has been little
different to what i get
in my rooms. If I get speakers to sound well here, they always travel
well.

My impressions with the sound with music is good, but the 50 watt class
A amps I have been using
for trials run completely out of headroom at only modest levels equal to
about
1/3 watt average into my Sublimes which are 5.6 ohms average, and have
88dB/W/M watt sensitivity.

After numerous calculations, I figured I needed 5 times the applied
voltage for the same SPL
with ERA panels compared to my own speakers.
At least a 100 watt amp would be needed for quite modest levels of
sound,
not because 100 watts would ever be generated, but merely
to get enough voltage.
Collin Tops said he was using an SET amp with 16 watts only,
and maybe he likes quietspeakers.

But I prefer loudspeakers.

And for these ERA quietspeakers, there is not the slightest bit of
speaker protection circuitry included
as it is in Quad ESL63. What is the safe maximum voltage?
not as much as for Quads, that's for sure.
Anyway, I did clip the 50 watt amp a few times when i tried to go loud
with some busy Salsa music from Buena Vista Social Club,
and nothing bad happened, so the 6 coats of goop I have on the stators
seemes to resist arcing.

A 16 watt SET amp with Rout 2ohms would be a horrible thing to drive
such ESL.
There would be a serious HF roll off, but perhaps Collin is an old giza
with stuffed hearing,
and so may not mind if the HF pole = 6kHz.
And without my networks and crossovers, the response could be worse,
peaked up high between
500 and 6kHz, ie, without bass or treble.

He will have to conduct all the same well conducted tests i have done
before he'd ever know WTF he's actually built.
He should not be offended when I say I don't trust what salesmen tell
me.

Nobody from ERA has had the courage to discuss their speakers in the
public forums.

I have just measured the Z, and with the details of networks below got
the following Z figures:-

10Hz, approx 80ohms,
20Hz, 41,
50Hz, 14,
60Hz, 11,
80Hz, 10,
110Hz, 11,
200Hz, 18,
300Hz, 20,
500Hz, 19,
1kHz, 15,
2kHz, 11.5,
10kHz, 5,
20kHz, 3,
40kHz, 2.

If you plot the above points on a graphed sheet of log paper, and
join the dots with gentle curves and you will have the Z.

The average Z between 50Hz and 2kHz = 14 ohms.

Therefore a tube amp set up for a match to 16 ohms will work,
but it'd need to be able to make 30Vrms, which is 64 watts into 14 ohms.
The amount of signal above 2kHz which feeds the low Z average of 5ohms
between 2khz and 20kHz
is small, and as long as the Rout 0.5 ohms there will not be a serious
loss of HF detail.
One of my 8585 tube amplifiers with a quad of KT90 in PP per channel
is powering 3 stacked pairs of ESL57 no problems, even though the Z =
0.6 ohms at 18kHz.

But 16 watts from SET would be hopless, unless you had the speakers so
close they are like
giant ESL headphones.


DO NOT use the recommended circuit resistances so vaguely shown in the
ER instructions.

I found that the best way to hook up the ESL-3B speakers is as follows:-

BEFORE the the input to the primary of the step up transformer, ( SUT
):-
Make a series L + R network of 4mH plus 27 ohms.
Connect this across the P winding.

Connect one end of the P winding to the 0V terminal for the black lead
from the amplifier.
To the other live primary end, connect a series C & R network of 150uF
plus 1.5ohms across to
the speaker terminal to which the red wire from the amp connects.

These two input networks will have several effects.
The 27 ohms plus 4mH makes the input loaded with 27 ohms at low F,
thus damping the low Z of the series 150uF and primary shunt inductance
of 32 mH.
The 150uF will prevent LF entering the speaker and causing the
rather poor quality SUT from saturating all too easily with high
transient LF voltages.
The -3dB cut off is at 50Hz, and the attenuation is second order, barely
enough.
To get better headroom for these speakers, use a second input cap in
series of
100uF, giving -3db at about 100Hz, then use a sub. More signal will be
then applicable
above 100Hz.

The 1.5 ohms adds to the 0.5 ohms of SUT winding resistance which is
important to damp the series resonance
between the awfully high amount of shunt capacitance in the SUT and the
leakage inductance at around 20kHz.
Therefore input resistance is a minimum of 2ohms by 50kHz, so not many
amps should blow up.


AFTER the secondary of the SUT, place the following networks
from each end of sec to the bass panel terminals:-

You will need the following parts,

16 x 100k resistors, metal film, 1%, 2 watt rated.

2 x 0.0033uF capacitors rated at 4kV.
Find good quality polypropylene caps.

To each bass stator, connect 100k to a pair of common points for the
rear and front pairs of bass panels,
Then series 4 x 100k to make 400k from each common point to the
ends of the SUT secondary.

To each treble stator, connect a parallel pair of 100k to make 50k to a
pair of common points
for front and rear stators.
From the common points, connect the 0.0033uF to the sec ends of the SUT.

The 0.0033uF plus 50k form a CR HPF.

MAKE SURE the treble panel with its crossover is REVERSE PHASE CONNECTED
TO THE BASS PANELS.

The -3dB points in the signals in the electronic circuit thus created is
160Hz for bass,
with signal rolling off at 6dB/octave above 160Hz, and 700Hz for the
treble panels, also
rolling off at 6dB/octave.
Keeping pass signals out of the treble panel is a good idea.

The speaker phase shift will be maximally quite large, but maybe under
60degrees,
but I found the treble acoustic signal produced by the bass panels will
affect
the treble panel badly if not phase reversed ( like many other dynamic
speakers ),
and despite the attenuation by the R & C filter LPF effect of bass
series R and the bass panel capacitance
which totals 800pF.
The ONLY way I could flatten the response and remove what was a wide 6dB
dip in the resonse at 5kHz
with reverse phase connections.
This what I measured, and the acoustic response has little corelation to
the signal applied.

I will perhaps draw all the relevant curves of bass and treble signals
applied and
and include all this info at a website page.
I hope to include a schematic of the equivalant LCR model of the the
panels and SUT.
I hope there would be a net positive result amoung builders of ESL.

This should all have a very positive effect on understanding
of what is really involved to make a pair of ESL speakers.
Hopefully, all of what i say will fertilize the minds who created the ER
Audio ESL speakers.

They can scream long and hard at my critique, and i don't give a ****,
their
marketing is quite deceptive, and they say
it'll be easy, and take only so long, but no, its not true,
and they are bull****ting, and the total time I will end up spending on
R&D,
and patching up the mess of the thing they supplied plus do all the
woodwork
will amount to 10 times the time they say.

My customer here was lulled into the project, along with me, under what
now seem like
false statements about the product.

Had I known of all the difficulties and parts quality and non
inclusions, i would never ever
have agreed to my building of one of these kits after my customer bought
it.
He isn't technically minded,
and could NEVER EVER have successfully built a kit from ERA.

If I allowed quite low trade rates of $50 per hour to build these
speakers and fix problems and do R&D,
I would find I would be entitled to claim a payment of maybe $5,000 for
the labour
of building these speakers, plus the cost of supply of items not
included, about $400.
being a gentleman I won't ask more than a fraction of the figure from my
customer,
but frankly, the sooner I see these speakers leaving my workshop, the
better,
and I don't ever want to build another pair that I did not fully design
myself!!!!!

The original kit price was $2,000, and so the whole deal of up $7,400
value
is quite poor value when a fully restored/rebuilt pair of Quad ESL57
could be had for
about $4,000 from one John Hall in Melbourne.

I have a Quad ESL57 which is unrestored and it even outperforms the ERA
on most counts.

How anyone could say the ERA speaker is better product than a Quad ESL57
or ESL63, as some have suggested
is quite beyond me; maybe these people had old speakers with lots of
faults, and replaced them with ERA
because they thought they'd be better.

The other complaint I have about the ESL3B is that its ONE panel, not
two bass with one treble, like ESL2B.
This means that if a membrane tears or ****s up in just one of the 3 sub
panels, the WHOLE
3 subpanels have to be fixed, rather than just fix one of the 3 sub
panels.

There is BS spiel about why the ESL3B is a better than others, but ERA
are pushing the flat ESL3B because
it appears to me the cost of production is less for the less complex
product.
but the repair bills for YOU, the buyer, will always be higher.

All the comparisons one reads make silly one liner statements without
the pages of detailed back ups.

So don't make me waste more time reading your replies which are not
backed up with facts.

Patrick Turner.


**** me..!!??

Shouldn't you be out on your bike somewhere...??


Well that's me total stuffed, and I ordered 12 house bricks from
Bunning's, special.
Just perhaps you need to be a total moron to build, construct, make,
assemble such rubbish, and not someone who considers themselves
technically perfect.

A little knowledge can be a very dangerous thing..

So next time you get something like this to assemble, Bung it over to
me, it sounds like a job for a wet weekend. So who got a solid 12
seater Dinner table to lend me.. Frankly all your technical
mumbo-jumbo doesn't count for ****, if the things sound like crap on
completion Even if they are an example of technically perfection.

Frankly, I can't understand why anyone would bother with a kit, When the
real
"warranty" things can be obtained without having a compulsory
nervous breakdown.

bassett

[west[_4_]]

"Keith G" wrote in message
...

"Patrick Turner" wrote in message
...


Some of you may have been following my reported progress
with trying to build a pair of ER Audio ESL-IIIB kits
which were purchased by a customer of mine from
http://www.eraudio.com.au/index.html

I have had the job of "assembling" these kits to a satisfactory level
of
operation.

I got started back in about February this year and could not proceed
as
quickly as
planned because of difficulties encountered resulting from the poor
design of the kits.

Before people think I have no prowess at building kits or speakers or
amplifiers, just take a look at
my website at http://www.turneraudio.com.au and compare the amount of
information and depth
of understanding compared with the all too brief techno info at the ER
Audio site.
At the ER site there is no proper electronic schematic for the ESL3B
as
it should be, no impedance
measurements, and no measured performance data.
These should be stated with ESL, because some amps will NOT be able to
drive the ER speakers,
whereas the speakers at my site are all easily drivable, and everyone
knows about SEAS
drivers being OK, so nothing I have made is any worse than the best
speakers made with SEAS drivers such as Sonus Faber and
Vienna Acoustic. I gurantee a flat full range response, ER don't
gurantee anything.

I have now overcome most of the ERA problems; I was not warned by
anything at the ER Audio site.

Here is the history so far of what happened, and it includes process
details and
some solutions worth remembering.

The kit was supplied with spacers already glued to the 1,200mm x 550mm
frames for the 3 panel
speaker.
8 of the 12 machine screws riveted to the 12 stator plates were too
long, and I had to cut them down with a Dremel tool
to 6mm. Failure to notice if the screws are too long will result in a
completely stuffed panel,
because the stators frames won't press down flat properly onto the
frames they are glued into
with polyurethane glue.

The only real mistake I made was with the first attempt to stretch a
membrane of the 3.5uM gossamer thin
mylar membrane. It is just so delicate! It was easy to tear using tape
and a spring balance
for sequential tensioning.
And sure enough it tore, and I had to begin again, and the second
attempt went perfectly until I glued the
first frame with its stators in place onto the surface of the
stretched
out membrane using super glue.

Unfortunately, a pin hole of invisible size allowed super glue to seep
through to the bench underneath,
and the membrane was ruined as I lifted the panel off the bench.
Its easy to sand it off the frame and clean up to do it again.

Could practice make perfect? I was about to learn....

Use of superglue as recommended in the ERA 33 pages of kit
instructions
was abandoned!!!

I sanded down the surface of the MDF sheet I was using as the bench
top
with very fine 600 grade
wet and dry sandpaper to remove whatever might have caused a damn
pinhole.
The bench sits on top of a heavy oak dining table I built 31 years ago
from thick oak planks.
( I don't have dinner parties anymore,
and the accoutrements of a gentleman have more productive uses these
days )

The third membrane went fine when I stretched it, and I used the
polyurethane glue
to glue to the frame after painting on the glue thinly to the plastic
frame.

I learnt that the easiest way to weigh down the frame on top of the
membrane already
stretched out on the perfectly flat solid bench is with about 24 house
bricks.

After lowering the frame with wet glue onto the membrane, cover the
frame with a damp
towel. The moisture in the towel will ensure the polyurethane glue
cures
well in 24 hours.
Place the bricks on top of the towel gently without allowing the frame
to slide around.
When all bricks are placed, gently go to each prick and press down
hard
with
about 20Kg in turn, and this will help remove air bubbles in the glue.
The towel prevents brick particles falling into the speaker panel.

You need to be very clean about everything with the construction; I
used
my loungeroom
because of the good lights, and clean environment.

Next day I very carefully cut around the edge of the membrane and I
had
a perfect looking
membrane when I lifted the bricks and towel away and lifted the frame.

The conductive strip of copper foil was placed on the second frame and
there were no problems.
This self adhesive strip 4.5m wide by about 0.2mm thick is actually
the
foil
they use around bits of glass used in leadlighting windows, and is
easily available.
DON'T drill the 4.5mm dia holes for the 12 x 4mm dia plastic bolts too
close to spacer edges
or else the membrane will not glue to the spacer properly and will
begin
a tear at the hole.

If you don't understand this, you will have torn membranes, and need
to
relocate
bolt holes, after filling up wrong ones, and this is a PITA.....

I applied the high resistance coating to the membrane. All seemed to
go
OK
but I used twice more than recomended, and Rob Mackinlay from ER later
said I shouldn't use too much.

After waiting a week for the coating to cure, I completed the basic
assembly with supplied
plastic bolts and plastic surrounds and I had a basically completed
speaker, but without
the timber surround or box for electronics underneath.

The kit does not include any surround timber frame or box, and one is
left to make all that oneself,
its rather like being given a speaker kit with drivers but without a
box.

I can only imagine the terrible attempts being made by amateur
audiophiles who have no
carpentry or joinery making skills or tools.
You won't want to see their speakers pictured on the Web.

Then came time to hook up the input transformer and build the not
supplied board for a suitable
cross over for the speakers.
I designed and built the un-supplied crossover and required board.

The electronic parts supplied were a regulated LV dc power supply
which
can be
adjusted for its dc level. This then feeds a supplied EHT supply which
converts the sub 10Vdc to
up to about -5.5kV for application to the membrane.
The EHT supply is connected with -EHT voltage taken to the copper foil
strip around the frames
and the ground terminal of the EHT supply is taken to the CT of the
SUT
secondary.

The SUT is supplied, but has half the core size and half the primary
turns really needed for
saturation proof operation.

I have advised ER Audio with full details of an alternative design for
their transformer,
and i look forward to them addopting my recomendations.

The supplied SUT has far too thin P to S insulation, resulting in
390pF
of shunt capacitance
appearing across the secondary, which transforms to massive 3.16uF at
the primary.
The treble panel has 100pF capacitance which transforms to 0.81uF,
and the total input capacitance seen by the amplifier = 4uF,
( about twice what Quad ESL57 managed ).

The bass panel capacitance of 800pF transforms to 6.5uF at the
primary,
but the series resistance
prevents this much C ever being experienced as a load on the amp, so
bass panel C is quite entirely benign.

I tried a very basic crossover network about which I will have more to
say,
and hooked up the speaker and tranny to an amplifier capable of 21Vrms
max into a
high Z load, and up to 70 watts into 3 ohms, 14.5Vrms.
Output Z was 0.2 ohms, BW 7Hz to 30kHz, 2 ohms connected at low
levels,
and THD 0.2% at max po into 8 ohms, 50 watts, 18Vrms, and mainly
class
A with a
quad of mosfets.

I turned on the EHT and gradually increased the EHT until I heard all
kinds of spluttery spittery sounds
and saw numerous blue discharges occuring all over the panels. I
backed
off immediately
until the noises stopped and conducted sound tests using pink noise
and
test gear as described in my
speaker building pages at
http://www.turneraudio.com.au/loudspeakers-diy.html

Then I began testing the responses at 1M, 2M ,4M distances at a 1.2M
off
floor level, on axis, with the
speaker taped temporarily to a stout dining chair I also built 31
years
ago.
Bottom of the speaker is 450mm above the floor, speaker is vertical.

I got a truly appalling response.

The sensitivity seemed appallingly low.
For the same quite low level of pink noise, I needed maybe 5 times the
voltage I'd need for my own Sublimes
shown at http://www.turneraudio.com.au/loudspeakers-new.html

The power handling was atrocious, and LF capablity suffered from
arcing
and distortions.
My customer visted me in the middle of testing and was not impressed
at
all.
We talked about quitting, but I ain't no bloody quitter.

I obtained the loan of a high impedance HV probe to measure up to 20kV
safely,
and found that any EHT increase above 2.2kV cause horrid discharge
noise
and premature clipping.
ESL sensitivity is about proportional to applied EHT voltage, and I
wanted to be able to apply
5,000V if possible, like ESL57 and ESL63.

I then thought that the arcing seen must be because the poor
insulation
qualities of
the black powder coating on the suplied stators.
So I stripped off membrane No 3, and coated all the stators
with two generous coats of anti corona paint, Isonel 642,
and put on a new membrane No 4 but with two very thin conductive coats
on the membrane,
this time using the right total amount and to get an even coating.

I also placed in the pattern of 10 anti resonance silicone pads but
that
made no difference
to following results.

I re-tested after the rebuild and curing times, and although there was
not such a lot of arcing and EHT leakage, the response and problems
were
quite
unacceptable. I turned off the EHT supply, and considered using more
membrane tension
of 2Kg / 60mm of side length, not the low 0.8Kg recommended.
ESL63 use 2.5Kg for the same material.
Lots of crackling noises continued for minutes after turn off of the
EHT
and after the
voltage had rapidly fallen to 0V.
It was the membrane partially releasing from its stuck position.

When I unbolted the two halves of the speaker the next day after the
dismal tests,
I found that about 70% of the area of both bass membranes
had become glued to the stators on the side away from that where the
membrane is coated.
I was able to gently prise the membrane off the starors with a bit of
bent copper wire
poked through slots in the stators.
Anti corona paint is slightly sticky with mylar.

No wonder I had such horrible test results. But it had taken two
attempts before I became aware of the
problem and I guess that EVERY SILLY MAN WHO TRIES TO USE ABOVE ABOUT
3KV
will have what I call membrane "stiction" problems.
There are posts I've seen in these silly little private forums where
they all bull**** to each other
of guys cranking up the EHT and I believe they don't realize
their problems. With stuck membranes, the speakers still work at mid &
treble, but
poorly, and definitely not as intended, and with queer bass.

Back to my drawing board I went, and at this point I didn't think it
would be wise to consult
ER Audio for advice, and I posted on these groups to see if anyone
else
had had problems.

One Collin Topps of the UK answered my initial posts to groups in
private emails
which began cordially, but ended rudely. Collin is the UK ERA sales
rep.
He said repeatedly nobody has had any problems building ER Audio
panels.
He refused to accept that I was having serious bothers, or offer any
advice that was relevant and useful.
Then he ended up telling me to sod off, and I thought that this
technically dumb salesman
in the UK acting for ER Audio as their sales agent has
some basic things about public relations he has yet to learn.

He'd sure never get a job selling anything I made.

I continued to post on the panels and learn more about ESL
construction
from other ESL amateur productions around the world.

Since then, I decided that the membrane must not be allowed to
travel too close to a stator, ideally not more than half the actual
distance
between membrane and stator surface, so if this is 4mm, as it is in
ESL57 bass panels,
then 2mm is enough maximum movement distance. Quad achive this by
using
2mm thick PVC plastic sheeting for bass stators, with conductive
stator
material being conductiove paint on the outside of the perforated
plastic sheeting.
So the membrane CANNOT move more than 2mm and cannot be less than 2mm
away from the stator
surface.
The of force of electrostatic attraction increases proportionally to
1/d
squared,
so if d is only a few thousanths of an inch,
F becomes huge.
No wonder my ERA membranes were sticking like cling wrap around a
pumpkin at the grocer.

The bass panel membrane to stator distance in ERA panels is 2.4mm.
I thought that if I applied about 0.8mm of non conductive material to
the inside surface of the stator,
It would keep the membrane getting too close to a stator, and the
extra
tension
would always overcome the force caused by the EHT without signal.
I'd have 1.6mm for membrane movement, not as much as in a Quad
speaker,
but enough.

So I applied four coats of silicone paint made from roof and gutter
silicone sealant
bought for $5 per tube at a plumber's store.
To coat all the stators for one speaker I used 1.3 tubes of silicone,
and about
600ml of white spirit for thinning.
The thinning is done by using a small cheap brush with dabbing action
in
a clean tuna fish can
until the paint has thick honey consistency and no visible lumps.
The silicone is applied by dabbing action with the brush laid flat on
the perforated steel sheeting,
not letting silicone close off perforation holes.
It self levels fairly well, and partially wraps around the sharp metal
edges of the holes in the stators,
so probably enhances air flow caused by sound waves.

24 hours is fine between coats of silicone. It sticks well to the anti
corona paint I already have on the stators.

The silicone becomes rubbery, and smooth surfaced, even though some
uneveness
of this coating thickness occurs, but basically, I got the right
amount
of
goop applied to all stator surfaces.

I finally stretched membrane No 5 last week and have re-assembled the
speaker
for a new test.

After the frame was first glued to the stretched and much tighter
membrane,
I still found the membrane tended to stick to the stator if pressed
over
to it gently by hand.
So I then bought a small can of Johnson's Baby Powder and squirted in
a
lot of powder through perforations,
and with an air blower, blew it all around everywhere.
Then i sucked off the excess woth a gentle vacuum cleaner.
On the opposite second frame and stators, i just dusted the powder on
and
removed excess with vacuum.
The panel was then re-assembled.

Did my ingenuity prevent the problems I was having?

After connection of the speaker to the amp and without signal, I
raised
the EHT and
at 3.2kV while I watched the bass membranes carefully I saw them whip
over to a stator and remain hard against it.
Hmm, same old problem.
However, when i reduced EHT, the membrane let go without all the
crackling
sounds they'd made previously after turn off of the EHT supply.
The powdered layer of rubber was doing the right kind of trick in
preventing
stiction.

I was able to leave the EHT on all night at 3kV, but just
occasionally,
some
small click noise would occur, so i have settled on having 2.7kV as
the
maximum EHT voltage
which could be safely applied to these panels before problems would
occur.

I began to seriously test the speaker response and do serious
comparisons again
with my own blameless Sublimes.
They sit side by side, and comparisons can be fairly made, same room,
200Cubic metres,
well out from a wall, well damped etc.
The same amps, test signal, test gear and mic is used to eliminate any
chance
of making an unfair comparison.

Finally, I got the speakers to measure +/- 2dB between LF pole = 35Hz
and HF pole = 22kHz,
and to give as flat a response as I could get without adding
a ridiculous number of crossover compensation networks.

This response was measured at 3M with mic 800mm above the floor, and
about exactly
how they will be listened to in my customer's room, which is not quite
as good as my own,
but measurement of his existing speaker response has been little
different to what i get
in my rooms. If I get speakers to sound well here, they always travel
well.

My impressions with the sound with music is good, but the 50 watt
class
A amps I have been using
for trials run completely out of headroom at only modest levels equal
to
about
1/3 watt average into my Sublimes which are 5.6 ohms average, and have
88dB/W/M watt sensitivity.

After numerous calculations, I figured I needed 5 times the applied
voltage for the same SPL
with ERA panels compared to my own speakers.
At least a 100 watt amp would be needed for quite modest levels of
sound,
not because 100 watts would ever be generated, but merely
to get enough voltage.
Collin Tops said he was using an SET amp with 16 watts only,
and maybe he likes quietspeakers.

But I prefer loudspeakers.

And for these ERA quietspeakers, there is not the slightest bit of
speaker protection circuitry included
as it is in Quad ESL63. What is the safe maximum voltage?
not as much as for Quads, that's for sure.
Anyway, I did clip the 50 watt amp a few times when i tried to go loud
with some busy Salsa music from Buena Vista Social Club,
and nothing bad happened, so the 6 coats of goop I have on the stators
seemes to resist arcing.

A 16 watt SET amp with Rout 2ohms would be a horrible thing to drive
such ESL.
There would be a serious HF roll off, but perhaps Collin is an old
giza
with stuffed hearing,
and so may not mind if the HF pole = 6kHz.
And without my networks and crossovers, the response could be worse,
peaked up high between
500 and 6kHz, ie, without bass or treble.

He will have to conduct all the same well conducted tests i have done
before he'd ever know WTF he's actually built.
He should not be offended when I say I don't trust what salesmen tell
me.

Nobody from ERA has had the courage to discuss their speakers in the
public forums.

I have just measured the Z, and with the details of networks below got
the following Z figures:-

10Hz, approx 80ohms,
20Hz, 41,
50Hz, 14,
60Hz, 11,
80Hz, 10,
110Hz, 11,
200Hz, 18,
300Hz, 20,
500Hz, 19,
1kHz, 15,
2kHz, 11.5,
10kHz, 5,
20kHz, 3,
40kHz, 2.

If you plot the above points on a graphed sheet of log paper, and
join the dots with gentle curves and you will have the Z.

The average Z between 50Hz and 2kHz = 14 ohms.

Therefore a tube amp set up for a match to 16 ohms will work,
but it'd need to be able to make 30Vrms, which is 64 watts into 14
ohms.
The amount of signal above 2kHz which feeds the low Z average of 5ohms
between 2khz and 20kHz
is small, and as long as the Rout 0.5 ohms there will not be a
serious
loss of HF detail.
One of my 8585 tube amplifiers with a quad of KT90 in PP per channel
is powering 3 stacked pairs of ESL57 no problems, even though the Z =
0.6 ohms at 18kHz.

But 16 watts from SET would be hopless, unless you had the speakers so
close they are like
giant ESL headphones.


DO NOT use the recommended circuit resistances so vaguely shown in the
ER instructions.

I found that the best way to hook up the ESL-3B speakers is as
follows:-

BEFORE the the input to the primary of the step up transformer, ( SUT
):-
Make a series L + R network of 4mH plus 27 ohms.
Connect this across the P winding.

Connect one end of the P winding to the 0V terminal for the black lead
from the amplifier.
To the other live primary end, connect a series C & R network of 150uF
plus 1.5ohms across to
the speaker terminal to which the red wire from the amp connects.

These two input networks will have several effects.
The 27 ohms plus 4mH makes the input loaded with 27 ohms at low F,
thus damping the low Z of the series 150uF and primary shunt
inductance
of 32 mH.
The 150uF will prevent LF entering the speaker and causing the
rather poor quality SUT from saturating all too easily with high
transient LF voltages.
The -3dB cut off is at 50Hz, and the attenuation is second order,
barely
enough.
To get better headroom for these speakers, use a second input cap in
series of
100uF, giving -3db at about 100Hz, then use a sub. More signal will be
then applicable
above 100Hz.

The 1.5 ohms adds to the 0.5 ohms of SUT winding resistance which is
important to damp the series resonance
between the awfully high amount of shunt capacitance in the SUT and
the
leakage inductance at around 20kHz.
Therefore input resistance is a minimum of 2ohms by 50kHz, so not many
amps should blow up.


AFTER the secondary of the SUT, place the following networks
from each end of sec to the bass panel terminals:-

You will need the following parts,

16 x 100k resistors, metal film, 1%, 2 watt rated.

2 x 0.0033uF capacitors rated at 4kV.
Find good quality polypropylene caps.

To each bass stator, connect 100k to a pair of common points for the
rear and front pairs of bass panels,
Then series 4 x 100k to make 400k from each common point to the
ends of the SUT secondary.

To each treble stator, connect a parallel pair of 100k to make 50k to
a
pair of common points
for front and rear stators.
From the common points, connect the 0.0033uF to the sec ends of the
SUT.

The 0.0033uF plus 50k form a CR HPF.

MAKE SURE the treble panel with its crossover is REVERSE PHASE
CONNECTED
TO THE BASS PANELS.

The -3dB points in the signals in the electronic circuit thus created
is
160Hz for bass,
with signal rolling off at 6dB/octave above 160Hz, and 700Hz for the
treble panels, also
rolling off at 6dB/octave.
Keeping pass signals out of the treble panel is a good idea.

The speaker phase shift will be maximally quite large, but maybe under
60degrees,
but I found the treble acoustic signal produced by the bass panels
will
affect
the treble panel badly if not phase reversed ( like many other dynamic
speakers ),
and despite the attenuation by the R & C filter LPF effect of bass
series R and the bass panel capacitance
which totals 800pF.
The ONLY way I could flatten the response and remove what was a wide
6dB
dip in the resonse at 5kHz
with reverse phase connections.
This what I measured, and the acoustic response has little corelation
to
the signal applied.

I will perhaps draw all the relevant curves of bass and treble signals
applied and
and include all this info at a website page.
I hope to include a schematic of the equivalant LCR model of the the
panels and SUT.
I hope there would be a net positive result amoung builders of ESL.

This should all have a very positive effect on understanding
of what is really involved to make a pair of ESL speakers.
Hopefully, all of what i say will fertilize the minds who created the
ER
Audio ESL speakers.

They can scream long and hard at my critique, and i don't give a ****,
their
marketing is quite deceptive, and they say
it'll be easy, and take only so long, but no, its not true,
and they are bull****ting, and the total time I will end up spending
on
R&D,
and patching up the mess of the thing they supplied plus do all the
woodwork
will amount to 10 times the time they say.

My customer here was lulled into the project, along with me, under
what
now seem like
false statements about the product.

Had I known of all the difficulties and parts quality and non
inclusions, i would never ever
have agreed to my building of one of these kits after my customer
bought
it.
He isn't technically minded,
and could NEVER EVER have successfully built a kit from ERA.

If I allowed quite low trade rates of $50 per hour to build these
speakers and fix problems and do R&D,
I would find I would be entitled to claim a payment of maybe $5,000
for
the labour
of building these speakers, plus the cost of supply of items not
included, about $400.
being a gentleman I won't ask more than a fraction of the figure from
my
customer,
but frankly, the sooner I see these speakers leaving my workshop, the
better,
and I don't ever want to build another pair that I did not fully
design
myself!!!!!

The original kit price was $2,000, and so the whole deal of up $7,400
value
is quite poor value when a fully restored/rebuilt pair of Quad ESL57
could be had for
about $4,000 from one John Hall in Melbourne.

I have a Quad ESL57 which is unrestored and it even outperforms the
ERA
on most counts.

How anyone could say the ERA speaker is better product than a Quad
ESL57
or ESL63, as some have suggested
is quite beyond me; maybe these people had old speakers with lots of
faults, and replaced them with ERA
because they thought they'd be better.

The other complaint I have about the ESL3B is that its ONE panel, not
two bass with one treble, like ESL2B.
This means that if a membrane tears or ****s up in just one of the 3
sub
panels, the WHOLE
3 subpanels have to be fixed, rather than just fix one of the 3 sub
panels.

There is BS spiel about why the ESL3B is a better than others, but ERA
are pushing the flat ESL3B because
it appears to me the cost of production is less for the less complex
product.
but the repair bills for YOU, the buyer, will always be higher.

All the comparisons one reads make silly one liner statements without
the pages of detailed back ups.

So don't make me waste more time reading your replies which are not
backed up with facts.

Patrick Turner.


**** me..!!??

Shouldn't you be out on your bike somewhere...??
]
Professor, What you described was a horror story for a layman. With all said
and done, how do the bloody contraptions sound?

west

[Peter Wieck]

You have my deepest sympathies. This reminds me of some of the items
that have crossed my bench for repair where the owner has a
sentimental reason or some such that makes even the most irrational
approach feasible. One such case, I actually took the few useable
parts out of the item (one output transformer, a choke, front panel
and knobs, cleaned them up and installed them into an entirely
different working chassis (saving the parts from that one, of course),
and returned it to my friend... he thought I had 'worked a miracle'.
He had left the room for a few hours just as his Eico 70 was
experiencing an output tube melt-down... Fortunately the panel breaker
blew before the real-estate was threatened.

To this day some 18 years later, he still believes that he has his
original unit, only this time he pays attention to the bias and tube
behavior. I don't charge people to indulge in my hobby, but I warned
him that next time I would.

I admire your perseverance, many would have returned the kluge to the
customer and wished them the best of luck. And it does seem to be one
helluvalot of money to spend for a badly conceived kit.

Out of curiosity, do you think such kits are at all feasible in the
real world? Do you think that:

a) better instructions
b) better parts-finishing
c) better diagrams

or some permutation/combination of the above could make such a kit
workable for the average Jill or Joe? You mention that you had to
design-build your own crossovers... They are not complicated, but do
you think this should be "Factory" or at least the bits included?

It seems to me from many thousands of miles away that the entire kit
is an afterthought made from factory sweepings...

But, thank you again for your painstaking description and tale. A
significant example of "doing" over "blathering".

Peter Wieck
Wyncote, PA

[[email protected]]

Patrick Turner wrote:
Some of you may have been following my reported progress
with trying to build a pair of ER Audio ESL-IIIB kits
which were purchased by a customer of mine from
http://www.eraudio.com.au/index.html

I have had the job of "assembling" these kits to a satisfactory level of
operation.

I got started back in about February this year and could not proceed as
quickly as
planned because of difficulties encountered resulting from the poor
design of the kits.

Before people think I have no prowess at building kits or speakers or
amplifiers, just take a look at
my website at http://www.turneraudio.com.au and compare the amount of
information and depth
of understanding compared with the all too brief techno info at the ER
Audio site.
At the ER site there is no proper electronic schematic for the ESL3B as
it should be, no impedance
measurements, and no measured performance data.
These should be stated with ESL, because some amps will NOT be able to
drive the ER speakers,
whereas the speakers at my site are all easily drivable, and everyone
knows about SEAS
drivers being OK, so nothing I have made is any worse than the best
speakers made with SEAS drivers such as Sonus Faber and
Vienna Acoustic. I gurantee a flat full range response, ER don't
gurantee anything.

I have now overcome most of the ERA problems; I was not warned by
anything at the ER Audio site.

Here is the history so far of what happened, and it includes process
details and
some solutions worth remembering.

The kit was supplied with spacers already glued to the 1,200mm x 550mm
frames for the 3 panel
speaker.
8 of the 12 machine screws riveted to the 12 stator plates were too
long, and I had to cut them down with a Dremel tool
to 6mm. Failure to notice if the screws are too long will result in a
completely stuffed panel,
because the stators frames won't press down flat properly onto the
frames they are glued into
with polyurethane glue.

The only real mistake I made was with the first attempt to stretch a
membrane of the 3.5uM gossamer thin
mylar membrane. It is just so delicate! It was easy to tear using tape
and a spring balance
for sequential tensioning.
And sure enough it tore, and I had to begin again, and the second
attempt went perfectly until I glued the
first frame with its stators in place onto the surface of the stretched
out membrane using super glue.

Unfortunately, a pin hole of invisible size allowed super glue to seep
through to the bench underneath,
and the membrane was ruined as I lifted the panel off the bench.
Its easy to sand it off the frame and clean up to do it again.

Could practice make perfect? I was about to learn....

Use of superglue as recommended in the ERA 33 pages of kit instructions
was abandoned!!!

I sanded down the surface of the MDF sheet I was using as the bench top
with very fine 600 grade
wet and dry sandpaper to remove whatever might have caused a damn
pinhole.
The bench sits on top of a heavy oak dining table I built 31 years ago
from thick oak planks.
( I don't have dinner parties anymore,
and the accoutrements of a gentleman have more productive uses these
days )

The third membrane went fine when I stretched it, and I used the
polyurethane glue
to glue to the frame after painting on the glue thinly to the plastic
frame.

I learnt that the easiest way to weigh down the frame on top of the
membrane already
stretched out on the perfectly flat solid bench is with about 24 house
bricks.

After lowering the frame with wet glue onto the membrane, cover the
frame with a damp
towel. The moisture in the towel will ensure the polyurethane glue cures
well in 24 hours.
Place the bricks on top of the towel gently without allowing the frame
to slide around.
When all bricks are placed, gently go to each prick and press down hard
with
about 20Kg in turn, and this will help remove air bubbles in the glue.
The towel prevents brick particles falling into the speaker panel.

You need to be very clean about everything with the construction; I used
my loungeroom
because of the good lights, and clean environment.

Next day I very carefully cut around the edge of the membrane and I had
a perfect looking
membrane when I lifted the bricks and towel away and lifted the frame.

The conductive strip of copper foil was placed on the second frame and
there were no problems.
This self adhesive strip 4.5m wide by about 0.2mm thick is actually the
foil
they use around bits of glass used in leadlighting windows, and is
easily available.
DON'T drill the 4.5mm dia holes for the 12 x 4mm dia plastic bolts too
close to spacer edges
or else the membrane will not glue to the spacer properly and will begin
a tear at the hole.

If you don't understand this, you will have torn membranes, and need to
relocate
bolt holes, after filling up wrong ones, and this is a PITA.....

I applied the high resistance coating to the membrane. All seemed to go
OK
but I used twice more than recomended, and Rob Mackinlay from ER later
said I shouldn't use too much.

After waiting a week for the coating to cure, I completed the basic
assembly with supplied
plastic bolts and plastic surrounds and I had a basically completed
speaker, but without
the timber surround or box for electronics underneath.

The kit does not include any surround timber frame or box, and one is
left to make all that oneself,
its rather like being given a speaker kit with drivers but without a
box.

I can only imagine the terrible attempts being made by amateur
audiophiles who have no
carpentry or joinery making skills or tools.
You won't want to see their speakers pictured on the Web.

Then came time to hook up the input transformer and build the not
supplied board for a suitable
cross over for the speakers.
I designed and built the un-supplied crossover and required board.

The electronic parts supplied were a regulated LV dc power supply which
can be
adjusted for its dc level. This then feeds a supplied EHT supply which
converts the sub 10Vdc to
up to about -5.5kV for application to the membrane.
The EHT supply is connected with -EHT voltage taken to the copper foil
strip around the frames
and the ground terminal of the EHT supply is taken to the CT of the SUT
secondary.

The SUT is supplied, but has half the core size and half the primary
turns really needed for
saturation proof operation.

I have advised ER Audio with full details of an alternative design for
their transformer,
and i look forward to them addopting my recomendations.

The supplied SUT has far too thin P to S insulation, resulting in 390pF
of shunt capacitance
appearing across the secondary, which transforms to massive 3.16uF at
the primary.
The treble panel has 100pF capacitance which transforms to 0.81uF,
and the total input capacitance seen by the amplifier = 4uF,
( about twice what Quad ESL57 managed ).

The bass panel capacitance of 800pF transforms to 6.5uF at the primary,
but the series resistance
prevents this much C ever being experienced as a load on the amp, so
bass panel C is quite entirely benign.

I tried a very basic crossover network about which I will have more to
say,
and hooked up the speaker and tranny to an amplifier capable of 21Vrms
max into a
high Z load, and up to 70 watts into 3 ohms, 14.5Vrms.
Output Z was 0.2 ohms, BW 7Hz to 30kHz, 2 ohms connected at low levels,
and THD 0.2% at max po into 8 ohms, 50 watts, 18Vrms, and mainly class
A with a
quad of mosfets.

I turned on the EHT and gradually increased the EHT until I heard all
kinds of spluttery spittery sounds
and saw numerous blue discharges occuring all over the panels. I backed
off immediately
until the noises stopped and conducted sound tests using pink noise and
test gear as described in my
speaker building pages at
http://www.turneraudio.com.au/loudspeakers-diy.html

Then I began testing the responses at 1M, 2M ,4M distances at a 1.2M off
floor level, on axis, with the
speaker taped temporarily to a stout dining chair I also built 31 years
ago.
Bottom of the speaker is 450mm above the floor, speaker is vertical.

I got a truly appalling response.

The sensitivity seemed appallingly low.
For the same quite low level of pink noise, I needed maybe 5 times the
voltage I'd need for my own Sublimes
shown at http://www.turneraudio.com.au/loudspeakers-new.html

The power handling was atrocious, and LF capablity suffered from arcing
and distortions.
My customer visted me in the middle of testing and was not impressed at
all.
We talked about quitting, but I ain't no bloody quitter.

I obtained the loan of a high impedance HV probe to measure up to 20kV
safely,
and found that any EHT increase above 2.2kV cause horrid discharge noise
and premature clipping.
ESL sensitivity is about proportional to applied EHT voltage, and I
wanted to be able to apply
5,000V if possible, like ESL57 and ESL63.

I then thought that the arcing seen must be because the poor insulation
qualities of
the black powder coating on the suplied stators.
So I stripped off membrane No 3, and coated all the stators
with two generous coats of anti corona paint, Isonel 642,
and put on a new membrane No 4 but with two very thin conductive coats
on the membrane,
this time using the right total amount and to get an even coating.

I also placed in the pattern of 10 anti resonance silicone pads but that
made no difference
to following results.

I re-tested after the rebuild and curing times, and although there was
not such a lot of arcing and EHT leakage, the response and problems were
quite
unacceptable. I turned off the EHT supply, and considered using more
membrane tension
of 2Kg / 60mm of side length, not the low 0.8Kg recommended.
ESL63 use 2.5Kg for the same material.
Lots of crackling noises continued for minutes after turn off of the EHT
and after the
voltage had rapidly fallen to 0V.
It was the membrane partially releasing from its stuck position.

When I unbolted the two halves of the speaker the next day after the
dismal tests,
I found that about 70% of the area of both bass membranes
had become glued to the stators on the side away from that where the
membrane is coated.
I was able to gently prise the membrane off the starors with a bit of
bent copper wire
poked through slots in the stators.
Anti corona paint is slightly sticky with mylar.

No wonder I had such horrible test results. But it had taken two
attempts before I became aware of the
problem and I guess that EVERY SILLY MAN WHO TRIES TO USE ABOVE ABOUT
3KV
will have what I call membrane "stiction" problems.
There are posts I've seen in these silly little private forums where
they all bull**** to each other
of guys cranking up the EHT and I believe they don't realize
their problems. With stuck membranes, the speakers still work at mid &
treble, but
poorly, and definitely not as intended, and with queer bass.

Back to my drawing board I went, and at this point I didn't think it
would be wise to consult
ER Audio for advice, and I posted on these groups to see if anyone else
had had problems.

One Collin Topps of the UK answered my initial posts to groups in
private emails
which began cordially, but ended rudely. Collin is the UK ERA sales rep.
He said repeatedly nobody has had any problems building ER Audio panels.
He refused to accept that I was having serious bothers, or offer any
advice that was relevant and useful.
Then he ended up telling me to sod off, and I thought that this
technically dumb salesman
in the UK acting for ER Audio as their sales agent has
some basic things about public relations he has yet to learn.

He'd sure never get a job selling anything I made.

I continued to post on the panels and learn more about ESL construction
from other ESL amateur productions around the world.

Since then, I decided that the membrane must not be allowed to
travel too close to a stator, ideally not more than half the actual
distance
between membrane and stator surface, so if this is 4mm, as it is in
ESL57 bass panels,
then 2mm is enough maximum movement distance. Quad achive this by using
2mm thick PVC plastic sheeting for bass stators, with conductive stator
material being conductiove paint on the outside of the perforated
plastic sheeting.
So the membrane CANNOT move more than 2mm and cannot be less than 2mm
away from the stator
surface.
The of force of electrostatic attraction increases proportionally to 1/d
squared,
so if d is only a few thousanths of an inch,
F becomes huge.
No wonder my ERA membranes were sticking like cling wrap around a
pumpkin at the grocer.

The bass panel membrane to stator distance in ERA panels is 2.4mm.
I thought that if I applied about 0.8mm of non conductive material to
the inside surface of the stator,
It would keep the membrane getting too close to a stator, and the extra
tension
would always overcome the force caused by the EHT without signal.
I'd have 1.6mm for membrane movement, not as much as in a Quad speaker,
but enough.

So I applied four coats of silicone paint made from roof and gutter
silicone sealant
bought for $5 per tube at a plumber's store.
To coat all the stators for one speaker I used 1.3 tubes of silicone,
and about
600ml of white spirit for thinning.
The thinning is done by using a small cheap brush with dabbing action in
a clean tuna fish can
until the paint has thick honey consistency and no visible lumps.
The silicone is applied by dabbing action with the brush laid flat on
the perforated steel sheeting,
not letting silicone close off perforation holes.
It self levels fairly well, and partially wraps around the sharp metal
edges of the holes in the stators,
so probably enhances air flow caused by sound waves.

24 hours is fine between coats of silicone. It sticks well to the anti
corona paint I already have on the stators.

The silicone becomes rubbery, and smooth surfaced, even though some
uneveness
of this coating thickness occurs, but basically, I got the right amount
of
goop applied to all stator surfaces.

I finally stretched membrane No 5 last week and have re-assembled the
speaker
for a new test.

After the frame was first glued to the stretched and much tighter
membrane,
I still found the membrane tended to stick to the stator if pressed over
to it gently by hand.
So I then bought a small can of Johnson's Baby Powder and squirted in a
lot of powder through perforations,
and with an air blower, blew it all around everywhere.
Then i sucked off the excess woth a gentle vacuum cleaner.
On the opposite second frame and stators, i just dusted the powder on
and
removed excess with vacuum.
The panel was then re-assembled.

Did my ingenuity prevent the problems I was having?

After connection of the speaker to the amp and without signal, I raised
the EHT and
at 3.2kV while I watched the bass membranes carefully I saw them whip
over to a stator and remain hard against it.
Hmm, same old problem.
However, when i reduced EHT, the membrane let go without all the
crackling
sounds they'd made previously after turn off of the EHT supply.
The powdered layer of rubber was doing the right kind of trick in
preventing
stiction.

I was able to leave the EHT on all night at 3kV, but just occasionally,
some
small click noise would occur, so i have settled on having 2.7kV as the
maximum EHT voltage
which could be safely applied to these panels before problems would
occur.

I began to seriously test the speaker response and do serious
comparisons again
with my own blameless Sublimes.
They sit side by side, and comparisons can be fairly made, same room,
200Cubic metres,
well out from a wall, well damped etc.
The same amps, test signal, test gear and mic is used to eliminate any
chance
of making an unfair comparison.

Finally, I got the speakers to measure +/- 2dB between LF pole = 35Hz
and HF pole = 22kHz,
and to give as flat a response as I could get without adding
a ridiculous number of crossover compensation networks.

This response was measured at 3M with mic 800mm above the floor, and
about exactly
how they will be listened to in my customer's room, which is not quite
as good as my own,
but measurement of his existing speaker response has been little
different to what i get
in my rooms. If I get speakers to sound well here, they always travel
well.

My impressions with the sound with music is good, but the 50 watt class
A amps I have been using
for trials run completely out of headroom at only modest levels equal to
about
1/3 watt average into my Sublimes which are 5.6 ohms average, and have
88dB/W/M watt sensitivity.

After numerous calculations, I figured I needed 5 times the applied
voltage for the same SPL
with ERA panels compared to my own speakers.
At least a 100 watt amp would be needed for quite modest levels of
sound,
not because 100 watts would ever be generated, but merely
to get enough voltage.
Collin Tops said he was using an SET amp with 16 watts only,
and maybe he likes quietspeakers.

But I prefer loudspeakers.

And for these ERA quietspeakers, there is not the slightest bit of
speaker protection circuitry included
as it is in Quad ESL63. What is the safe maximum voltage?
not as much as for Quads, that's for sure.
Anyway, I did clip the 50 watt amp a few times when i tried to go loud
with some busy Salsa music from Buena Vista Social Club,
and nothing bad happened, so the 6 coats of goop I have on the stators
seemes to resist arcing.

A 16 watt SET amp with Rout 2ohms would be a horrible thing to drive
such ESL.
There would be a serious HF roll off, but perhaps Collin is an old giza
with stuffed hearing,
and so may not mind if the HF pole = 6kHz.
And without my networks and crossovers, the response could be worse,
peaked up high between
500 and 6kHz, ie, without bass or treble.

He will have to conduct all the same well conducted tests i have done
before he'd ever know WTF he's actually built.
He should not be offended when I say I don't trust what salesmen tell
me.

Nobody from ERA has had the courage to discuss their speakers in the
public forums.

I have just measured the Z, and with the details of networks below got
the following Z figures:-

10Hz, approx 80ohms,
20Hz, 41,
50Hz, 14,
60Hz, 11,
80Hz, 10,
110Hz, 11,
200Hz, 18,
300Hz, 20,
500Hz, 19,
1kHz, 15,
2kHz, 11.5,
10kHz, 5,
20kHz, 3,
40kHz, 2.

If you plot the above points on a graphed sheet of log paper, and
join the dots with gentle curves and you will have the Z.

The average Z between 50Hz and 2kHz = 14 ohms.

Therefore a tube amp set up for a match to 16 ohms will work,
but it'd need to be able to make 30Vrms, which is 64 watts into 14 ohms.
The amount of signal above 2kHz which feeds the low Z average of 5ohms
between 2khz and 20kHz
is small, and as long as the Rout 0.5 ohms there will not be a serious
loss of HF detail.
One of my 8585 tube amplifiers with a quad of KT90 in PP per channel
is powering 3 stacked pairs of ESL57 no problems, even though the Z =
0.6 ohms at 18kHz.

But 16 watts from SET would be hopless, unless you had the speakers so
close they are like
giant ESL headphones.


DO NOT use the recommended circuit resistances so vaguely shown in the
ER instructions.

I found that the best way to hook up the ESL-3B speakers is as follows:-

BEFORE the the input to the primary of the step up transformer, ( SUT
):-
Make a series L + R network of 4mH plus 27 ohms.
Connect this across the P winding.

Connect one end of the P winding to the 0V terminal for the black lead
from the amplifier.
To the other live primary end, connect a series C & R network of 150uF
plus 1.5ohms across to
the speaker terminal to which the red wire from the amp connects.

These two input networks will have several effects.
The 27 ohms plus 4mH makes the input loaded with 27 ohms at low F,
thus damping the low Z of the series 150uF and primary shunt inductance
of 32 mH.
The 150uF will prevent LF entering the speaker and causing the
rather poor quality SUT from saturating all too easily with high
transient LF voltages.
The -3dB cut off is at 50Hz, and the attenuation is second order, barely
enough.
To get better headroom for these speakers, use a second input cap in
series of
100uF, giving -3db at about 100Hz, then use a sub. More signal will be
then applicable
above 100Hz.

The 1.5 ohms adds to the 0.5 ohms of SUT winding resistance which is
important to damp the series resonance
between the awfully high amount of shunt capacitance in the SUT and the
leakage inductance at around 20kHz.
Therefore input resistance is a minimum of 2ohms by 50kHz, so not many
amps should blow up.


AFTER the secondary of the SUT, place the following networks
from each end of sec to the bass panel terminals:-

You will need the following parts,

16 x 100k resistors, metal film, 1%, 2 watt rated.

2 x 0.0033uF capacitors rated at 4kV.
Find good quality polypropylene caps.

To each bass stator, connect 100k to a pair of common points for the
rear and front pairs of bass panels,
Then series 4 x 100k to make 400k from each common point to the
ends of the SUT secondary.

To each treble stator, connect a parallel pair of 100k to make 50k to a
pair of common points
for front and rear stators.
From the common points, connect the 0.0033uF to the sec ends of the SUT.

The 0.0033uF plus 50k form a CR HPF.

MAKE SURE the treble panel with its crossover is REVERSE PHASE CONNECTED
TO THE BASS PANELS.

The -3dB points in the signals in the electronic circuit thus created is
160Hz for bass,
with signal rolling off at 6dB/octave above 160Hz, and 700Hz for the
treble panels, also
rolling off at 6dB/octave.
Keeping pass signals out of the treble panel is a good idea.

The speaker phase shift will be maximally quite large, but maybe under
60degrees,
but I found the treble acoustic signal produced by the bass panels will
affect
the treble panel badly if not phase reversed ( like many other dynamic
speakers ),
and despite the attenuation by the R & C filter LPF effect of bass
series R and the bass panel capacitance
which totals 800pF.
The ONLY way I could flatten the response and remove what was a wide 6dB
dip in the resonse at 5kHz
with reverse phase connections.
This what I measured, and the acoustic response has little corelation to
the signal applied.

I will perhaps draw all the relevant curves of bass and treble signals
applied and
and include all this info at a website page.
I hope to include a schematic of the equivalant LCR model of the the
panels and SUT.
I hope there would be a net positive result amoung builders of ESL.

This should all have a very positive effect on understanding
of what is really involved to make a pair of ESL speakers.
Hopefully, all of what i say will fertilize the minds who created the ER
Audio ESL speakers.

They can scream long and hard at my critique, and i don't give a ****,
their
marketing is quite deceptive, and they say
it'll be easy, and take only so long, but no, its not true,
and they are bull****ting, and the total time I will end up spending on
R&D,
and patching up the mess of the thing they supplied plus do all the
woodwork
will amount to 10 times the time they say.

My customer here was lulled into the project, along with me, under what
now seem like
false statements about the product.

Had I known of all the difficulties and parts quality and non
inclusions, i would never ever
have agreed to my building of one of these kits after my customer bought
it.
He isn't technically minded,
and could NEVER EVER have successfully built a kit from ERA.

If I allowed quite low trade rates of $50 per hour to build these
speakers and fix problems and do R&D,
I would find I would be entitled to claim a payment of maybe $5,000 for
the labour
of building these speakers, plus the cost of supply of items not
included, about $400.
being a gentleman I won't ask more than a fraction of the figure from my
customer,
but frankly, the sooner I see these speakers leaving my workshop, the
better,
and I don't ever want to build another pair that I did not fully design
myself!!!!!

The original kit price was $2,000, and so the whole deal of up $7,400
value
is quite poor value when a fully restored/rebuilt pair of Quad ESL57
could be had for
about $4,000 from one John Hall in Melbourne.

I have a Quad ESL57 which is unrestored and it even outperforms the ERA
on most counts.

How anyone could say the ERA speaker is better product than a Quad ESL57
or ESL63, as some have suggested
is quite beyond me; maybe these people had old speakers with lots of
faults, and replaced them with ERA
because they thought they'd be better.

The other complaint I have about the ESL3B is that its ONE panel, not
two bass with one treble, like ESL2B.
This means that if a membrane tears or ****s up in just one of the 3 sub
panels, the WHOLE
3 subpanels have to be fixed, rather than just fix one of the 3 sub
panels.

There is BS spiel about why the ESL3B is a better than others, but ERA
are pushing the flat ESL3B because
it appears to me the cost of production is less for the less complex
product.
but the repair bills for YOU, the buyer, will always be higher.

All the comparisons one reads make silly one liner statements without
the pages of detailed back ups.

So don't make me waste more time reading your replies which are not
backed up with facts.

Patrick Turner.

I admire your perseverance, Patrick, I really do. But by now you've
put in so much labor, a pair of Quad electrostats will be cheaper.

Thanks to The Boss I didn't go down your route. I enjoyed making
various quarter wave tapered pipes that Andre designed, and his
Impresario which my wife banished to the basement of our summer house
because it is so big, and horns for which Andre got me factory wood
and held my hand by e-mail through the assembly and modification and
veneering. Then I thought I was ready for electrostats. The Boss said
he would design me a direct drive tube amp if I actually managed to
build something first that worked with a stepup transformer from
Sowter. But I found a Dutch site and got some Google translations, and
Andre made me a couple more translations, and they frightened me right
off. Like The Boss said all along, it is much cheaper to buy Quads
than to mess around with DIY panels. They never work right. I still
dream of making my own electrostatic headphones though for the time
being, again on Andre's recommendation, I've just bought a pair of
Stax and built one of Andre's octal OTL amps to drive it. On the scale
of electrostatic earphones, a reasonable DIY result ought to be
possible. Maybe not economical considering how cheap Stax earhpones
are but possible, don't you think?

Kind regards,

Gray Glasser

[Patrick Turner]

snip my own stuff and a couple of inane comments by others,


Professor, What you described was a horror story for a layman. With all said
and done, how do the bloody contraptions sound?


The sound is "interesting", goodish, and I will see what my customer
thinks when we
sit down to a couple of CDs next Saturday using his 120W Musical
Fidelity A3 amplifier.

But they are not loudspeakers, just quietspeakers.
An amp designed for 50 watts into 5 ohms doesn't have enough
voltage headroom produce enough level.
The limiting factor is bass levels.
if the bass panels had twice the area, much less membrane excursion
woulod be needed,
and this would allow the FRED effect, full range electrostatic driver.

I think perhaps if I abandoned the need for deep bass production below
100Hz
on these units, I could safely apply twice the signal, and get a lot
more volume.
But then my customer needs the extra bass speakers.

If anyone buys the kits as is, I'd recommend they take the stators to a
guy who can cut out shapes in sheet plastic, and have them
create perforated 0.8mm thick plastic PVC sheet to the same pattern of
the steel stator holes.
This could then be glued well on the inside of the stators to "hold off"
the membrane
from trying to stick to the stators.

But I wouldn't stop there.

I'd use a larger stator to membrane distance, same as Quad ESL57,
and use similar materials.
Trouble is by the time I describe all the things one SHOULD do to make
the kits world leading kits,
one wouldn't bother to buy the kits at all, unless ER Audio incorporate
what I am saying.
I suspect they won't, perhaps because of the stocks they want to sell.
They won't alter everything just because some self taught
audio lunatic in Canberra wants to tell them how they ought to design
their product.
What I am suggesting is rarely ever welcomed as something to fertilize
minds
to make something better grow. Starting about NOW.

The Quad ESL57 treble arrangement has 1/2 the distances of the bass
panels, and much lower EHT and 1/2 the signal
drive levels, so the mid/treble panel is smaller, lower C, and really,
methinks its a better design for treble.
However, the clearance distances and EHT could be higher, like in Quad
ESL63,
but then the signal drive must be higher.

There are 5 things that are basically balanceable against each other,
area of the panels,
bandpass of the panels,
distances between stators and membrane,
signal voltage drive,
EHT levels.

Coating of the membrane is critical, but easy to do once youv'e done a
couple.

The design of the step up tranny is critical, and the higher the voltage
ratio,
the higher the Z ratio, and Quad's ESL57 potted and waxed SUT is a
lesson to us all about
how to do things right.

In ESL63, Quad made things easier for themselves by using TWO trannies,
one for
each phase applied to stators. Its vitally important
to keep insulation thickness between interleaved windings as thick as
possible
to curtail shunt capacitance which appears at the input as Z ratio x
Cshunt at the sec.

Braun made ESL57 variety in a panel size that was 1.5 times as high as
the old '57.

This is 1/2 way to having a stacked pair of 57.
ppl who have stacked ESL57 seldom complain about bass being missing,
so why not just have a similar design to '57 that is about 1.5M high,
same width.
The work involved isn't much more than with a single panel equal in area
to '57.
Capacitance rises though when the area increases, and thus its harder
for some amps to drive them.

But careful SUT design avoids the worst of the C.
The only panel needing to be directly connected to the SUT sec
is the small treble panels.

The real enthusiast would never buy any kit, he'd draw up his design
and make his calculations, after learning enough, and just do it.

Apart from the SUT, the expenses for materials for two large sized
panels
can easily be less than $300.

Getting anyone to wind the SUT with perhaps 10,000 turns of 0.2mm dia
wire
for the secondaries is a bother, so the enthusiast will make a lathe and
wind his own.
This is what I have done about OPTs.
Using a large core of about 5Kg with large window area permits less
turns,
so less self capacitance of windings, and less leakage L
and thicker P-S insulation.

The SUT for ESL is very much like an OPT, except that its step up, not
down,
and that the V ratio is much higher, so the capacitance must be very
low.

The material costs in a 6Kg tranny are about $15 per Kg max, or $90.
The rest is labour, so for the enthusiast who refuses to go to pubs,
watch TV,
dither about on the PC all day and night, he will find the time
as was done in the past to do it all himself.

We have become a lazy plug and play society.

When I was 29, I built all my own furniture, a double garage
which is a fine workshop now, all in my spare time after work
in a regular day job. I also found time to build a decent pair of
speakers,
I was BURSTING with energy i could only be proud of, and
all the idiots at the pub and stupid TV shows at night meant nothing to
me.
I doubled the size of the house I bought in the next few years after
that.

My energy and clear minded approach probably saved me
an enormous sum of money paid to others.

Patrick Turner.





















west

[Patrick Turner]

Peter Wieck wrote:

You have my deepest sympathies. This reminds me of some of the items
that have crossed my bench for repair where the owner has a
sentimental reason or some such that makes even the most irrational
approach feasible. One such case, I actually took the few useable
parts out of the item (one output transformer, a choke, front panel
and knobs, cleaned them up and installed them into an entirely
different working chassis (saving the parts from that one, of course),
and returned it to my friend... he thought I had 'worked a miracle'.
He had left the room for a few hours just as his Eico 70 was
experiencing an output tube melt-down... Fortunately the panel breaker
blew before the real-estate was threatened.

I am re-engineering a stereo Woodham CR amp made in the UK.
This nice looking amp has reliably produced clouds of smoke.
It will be totally re-built, using my own circuitry.
It was theraputic to remove all the terribly complex pcb to the rubbish
pile,
and saw a big hole in the case bottom to allow service access,
and fix in a proper top chassis plate.



To this day some 18 years later, he still believes that he has his
original unit, only this time he pays attention to the bias and tube
behavior. I don't charge people to indulge in my hobby, but I warned
him that next time I would.

I have to charge, its my living.

I admire your perseverance, many would have returned the kluge to the
customer and wished them the best of luck. And it does seem to be one
helluvalot of money to spend for a badly conceived kit.

Out of curiosity, do you think such kits are at all feasible in the
real world? Do you think that:

a) better instructions
b) better parts-finishing
c) better diagrams

If all 3 things are improved, yes, the ESL kits could be
equal to a Martin Logan, Quad, et all, and still less than 1/2 the
prices for the
high end names.

Anyone building an ESL kit should salute the High End names for charging
so much, because that high price gives them a chance to compete.


or some permutation/combination of the above could make such a kit
workable for the average Jill or Joe?

Frankly, ppl used to putting a dynamic speaker kit together
with nothing more than a screw driver and bottle of wood glue are in for
a real
shock woth an ESL kit. Its MUCH harder to get right.



You mention that you had to
design-build your own crossovers... They are not complicated, but do
you think this should be "Factory" or at least the bits included?

The "Factory" has not really done any R&D, other than guessing their way
to good sound.
I've done more in a couple of months than they seem to have done.
I finally evolved the crossover R values by trial and measurement after
intial calcs.
It was a surprise to find that the signal applied to the bass panels
has its F2 pole at 160Hz and rolls off at 6dB/octave, and and yet
the acoustic response was essentially flat from 35Hz to 2kHz.
So the bass panels have increasing sensitivity at 6dB/octave if fed with
a
flat signal, so you mustn't do this, because if you did the
response would be an arch, like the Sydney Harbour Bridge,
and the sound would be badly unbalanced with neither bass or upper
treble.


I measure things. I have serious technical expectations. I expect
ruggedness, and simplicity,
and ability to provide louder sound than I ever might use, ie, real
headroom,
sensitivity, and absense of arcing and BS stiction effects.
Even after taking steps to limit the membrane travel, i was able
to turn up the EHT and just watch the membrane move over to be hard
against a stator.
I'd back off the EHT, and it't re-centre, and I could repeat it.
From this I can only think that ALL their bass panels would behave
similarly.
So the amount of EHT is limited to around -2,700V, thus limiting
sensitivity.

If the step up tranny ratio was increased from the existing 1:90 ratio,
then the impedances all reduce; a rise of turn ratio to 1:127 would
halve the impedance.

There is a whole array of things need addressing and balancing.

Peter Walker spent many years developing his line of ESL.


It seems to me from many thousands of miles away that the entire kit
is an afterthought made from factory sweepings...

I wouldn't say the short comings are totally bad.

I'd rather think positive, and hope the kit makers step up the
quality. There IS a market for ESL, somewhat limited by the huge prices
of new ESL speakers.

There is about enough collective experience from the pioneers like Peter
Walker
and his mate Peter Baxandal to allow any keen person to develop decent
ESL panels.

Its all been done before.

Patrick Turner.



But, thank you again for your painstaking description and tale. A
significant example of "doing" over "blathering".

Peter Wieck
Wyncote, PA

[Patrick Turner]

wrote:

Patrick Turner wrote:
Some of you may have been following my reported progress...

Snip for brevity,

I admire your perseverance, Patrick, I really do. But by now you've
put in so much labor, a pair of Quad electrostats will be cheaper.

Thanks to The Boss I didn't go down your route. I enjoyed making
various quarter wave tapered pipes that Andre designed, and his
Impresario which my wife banished to the basement of our summer house
because it is so big, and horns for which Andre got me factory wood
and held my hand by e-mail through the assembly and modification and
veneering. Then I thought I was ready for electrostats. The Boss said
he would design me a direct drive tube amp if I actually managed to
build something first that worked with a stepup transformer from
Sowter. But I found a Dutch site and got some Google translations, and
Andre made me a couple more translations, and they frightened me right
off. Like The Boss said all along, it is much cheaper to buy Quads
than to mess around with DIY panels. They never work right. I still
dream of making my own electrostatic headphones though for the time
being, again on Andre's recommendation, I've just bought a pair of
Stax and built one of Andre's octal OTL amps to drive it. On the scale
of electrostatic earphones, a reasonable DIY result ought to be
possible. Maybe not economical considering how cheap Stax earhpones
are but possible, don't you think?

Kind regards,

Gray Glasser

I don't know too many others with my approach of trying to understand a
design
as one builds it, even to the point of telling a maker how he should
have done it.

I came to audio because I couldn't continue as a builder; my knees went
on strike.
I took the huge pay cut graciously; ppl pay a builder far more than they
will pay a sound man.

I am addicted to analysis and getting *good enough* measurements with
everything I have ever made.
When the things measure pretty well,
then everyone is welcome to argue about the kind of caps and hook-up
wire and brand of solder and tube choice
but unless the measurements are somewhere near decent, its a battle to
get good music.

I have always been very self reliant.

For someone who enjoys a challenge, an ESL kit is just that, and given
my level of
perserverence, somwone might get good results, and the whole project
will
end up a lot cheaper than a new set of Quads.

As long as the membranes are tight, evenly coated and stretched and
glued, and there
are no stiction problems, then good sound should come from aany ESL if
they
have been tailored to give the wanted response.
Getting horns made at home to sound well is often a case of building
expensive fire wood.
Much DIY stuff is mere junk, full of unwanted sonic artifacts, lousy
responses etc, and
ESL are the one type of speaker that doesn't have woodwork which can
resonate.

Maybe I get there in the end.

Patrick Turner.

in

[Iain Churches]

"Peter Wieck" wrote in message
oups.com...

I admire your perseverance, many would have returned the kluge to the
customer and wished them the best of luck. And it does seem to be one
helluvalot of money to spend for a badly conceived kit.

Hi Peter. Like you, I admire Patrick greatly for his patience and
resolution.

Out of curiosity, do you think such kits are at all feasible in the
real world? Do you think that:

a) better instructions
b) better parts-finishing
c) better diagrams

The only experience I have with kits was as a kid, when Heathkit
and Dynaco were popular. Their products were straightforward
but the instruction manuals were written and illustrated so well
that it would have been difficult to make a mistake.

It seems to me from many thousands of miles away that the entire kit
is an afterthought made from factory sweepings...

I wonder about the warranty conditions for such a kit. If the documentation
does not include the factory test stamp, how can one make redress if
the speakers melt down within the first few months?

I wonder also (if charging your time at a nominal 50 bucks) how much is
actually saved between the price of the kit and the factory finished (and
warranted) article.

But, thank you again for your painstaking description and tale. A
significant example of "doing" over "blathering".

Agreed.

Regards to all
Iain

[Trevor Wilson]

"Patrick Turner" wrote in message
...


Some of you may have been following my reported progress
with trying to build a pair of ER Audio ESL-IIIB kits
which were purchased by a customer of mine from
http://www.eraudio.com.au/index.html


SNIP Urk. doesn't sound like fun to me. BTW: If you need a proper
electrostatic Voltmeter, let me know. I have an ancient, but very good one.
It's big and delicate. I wouldn't freight it to you, but would deliver
personally. Or you can collect. I found it useful when servicing some
Accoustats awhile back. They use a 500M Ohm series resitor in the HT
section.


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au



--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

[bassett[_2_]]

"Patrick Turner" wrote in message
...

snip my own stuff and a couple of inane comments by others,

We have become a lazy plug and play society.

The saga of war and peace, has all been removed to save the ink in
my computer..

My energy and clear minded approach probably saved me
an enormous sum of money paid to others.

Patrick Turner.


So after all the bull **** you go on with,, what do they sound like,
are they any good, and how do they compair with professional
retailed products. ?????
Really that "IS" the bottom line.
bassett

[Patrick Turner]

Iain Churches wrote:

"Peter Wieck" wrote in message
oups.com...

I admire your perseverance, many would have returned the kluge to the
customer and wished them the best of luck. And it does seem to be one
helluvalot of money to spend for a badly conceived kit.

Hi Peter. Like you, I admire Patrick greatly for his patience and
resolution.

Out of curiosity, do you think such kits are at all feasible in the
real world? Do you think that:

a) better instructions
b) better parts-finishing
c) better diagrams

The only experience I have with kits was as a kid, when Heathkit
and Dynaco were popular. Their products were straightforward
but the instruction manuals were written and illustrated so well
that it would have been difficult to make a mistake.

It seems to me from many thousands of miles away that the entire kit
is an afterthought made from factory sweepings...

I wonder about the warranty conditions for such a kit. If the documentation
does not include the factory test stamp, how can one make redress if
the speakers melt down within the first few months?

There isn't anything that can "melt down"

It would be possible for shorted turn in the step up tranny
which is not varnished, waxed, or potted.
But unlike a tube OPT, there is no ever present DC and resulting heat,
especially if a saturated tube increase idle current drom 50mA to 400mA.

Without too much to go wrong, what need is there for a warranty?
And plenty of things do have a warranty, but it could still be
challenging
to resolve a problem of failure within the warranty period.
How does a maker know that someone's teenage sone cranks up daddy's
hi-fi when daddy is out?

I have witnessed the results when I had to repair amps and speakers.

Many things do fail while under warranty period. Repair places like
repairing them because
they must get get paid, so when Sony or Yamaha put yet another model of
cd player of amp
on the market, what ppl pay for at purchase is the repairs caused by
****wits shorting speakers,
people over driving things, etc, plus the faults that surface after
product launch.

If I'd found I had a dud step up tranny,
methinks Rob Mackinlay of ERA in Perth would replace it if I sent it
back.
If a tranny got a shorted turn in two years time I don't know if I'd get
a free replacement.

But not the panels cannot be under warranty because the parts supplier
didn't include his labour.
If I have trouble with them, its all my fault.
There is no way I could make any legal claim against ERA; I have no
intention to do so.

The idea of a kit is that the maker gives you a stack of parts, each
of which is faultless in itself, but then has to be assembled to a
whole, and that labour
cannot ever consitute part of a claim against the kit supplier.

Suppose I tried to supply OPT kits.

I could possibly supply some laminations, a plastic bobbin,
and two lots of winding wire, one for primary, one for secondary,
and all the insulation needed, and termination board, bolts, and an
amount of wax for waxing, and a decent set of instructions.

But if ppl buying such a kit cannot build, buy, or steal a winding
lathe,
and get everything tangled up and/or produce smoke when they connect it
to tubes,
its nothing to do with me. Its their problem, not mine.

This explains why kits are so cheap compared to the finished product.

New Quad ESL are maybe $14,000, and if an ESL kit costing $2,000 can be
assembled
in 20 hours ( and I doubt this is possible ), then the labour is $1,000
at $50/hr.
The speaker cost would be $3,000, an $11,000 has been saved.

The ERA kit supplier has NO detailed information on measured impedance,
no guranteed response measurements,
no exact specifications that a buyer can expect to equal,
and so any kit buyer has to expect to take the time to
get the speakers to whatever level of operation his skill allows.

I have very much higher skills than some who might attempt to make such
things,
and of course one isn't going to hear about the failres.

To prevent failures, and identify problems, and make it possible others
to follow
without encountering my problems, it seems sensible for me to create a
record of
my experience in the public domain so that if anyone in future searches
on Google about ERA
speakers, the discussions here will give them something to read
as an alternative to the sales pitch at the ERA website.

I'd very much like ER Audio to do very well.

An alternative ESL speaker
to the ridiculously priced Quads, Martin Logans, Soundlabs et all would
be a very welcome
addition to the hi-fi landscape, and made in Australia as well !!!
Beauty.

The point of my exercize is never to be just negative.

I am just saying that ERA ESL are a good basic idea, but need to
be able to be taught to fly further from the ground.

Therefore the panel design parameters and practical aspects about
having something charged up to maybe 6kV only 3mm away from a membrane
need more thought,
and the step up trannies need radical re-design.
I have not witnessed the actual winding of the SUT, or who actually does
it,
but the heaviest component is the SUT, at about 4Kg.
Its isn't physically badly wound from what i can tell.
The basic skill of being able to wind a tranny is present in the product
but the design does not allow for enough voltage at LF to be applied
without saturation occuring at too high an F,
and the P-S insulation needs to be at least 4 times thicker.
I have supplied an alternative design to ERA.
I don't like criticizing unless I can offer a detailed alternative
design which
the person I criticize is welcome to try.
If my ideas were adopted, the Fsat would be reduced to 14Hz at 30Vrms
input,
and the shunt C reduced by 70%, and all while maintaining low leakage
inductance,
and winding losses not more than 10%, therefore achieving something
fabulous,
rather than a toy.

ERA have 5,000 sec turns on an E&I core of 40mm tounge x 50mm stack. Afe
= 2,000sq.mm

The core needs to have a much bigger window to allow thicker insulation,
and 51mm tongue material is barely large enough; 62mm would be better,
and stack would need to be 50mm at least.
This would make Afe = 3,100sq.mm.

This large window area will permit the use of a vertically divided
bobbin
onto which 7,000 turns can easily be fitted for the whole sec.
The two half primary windings will have less shunt C because of the
vertical division,
and a S P S P S arrangement of sections with up to 2mm thick insulation
will keep LL low enough while lowering shunt C.

Taps off the sec for alternative connections would be useful,
and multiple P sections to allow a voltage ratio between 1:75 and 1:300
would be dreamy.


I wonder also (if charging your time at a nominal 50 bucks) how much is
actually saved between the price of the kit and the factory finished (and
warranted) article.

I can only charge so much and no more.

I won't disclose how much it would be, because I am not finished yet and
I have another panel to make, and the making of the timber surrounds,
and the trials of some heavy density polyester acoustic damping at the
rear of the speakers.
The electronics supplied are rather fragile, and need considerable
ruggedization
to prevent thin wires breaking and tiny plug and socket connections
becoming dodgy.
The timber support must be heavy and large, and allow being able to tilt
the speakers off the vertical angle.
Everything must be child proof, wife proof, and idiot proof.

If ppl knew they could buy the kit, and have me build it for them,
and get a gurantee from me for the the speakers for 3 years
unconditionally, and pay a total of 4 grand,
then there would be some business.

I thought this may turn out to be the case, as building some kit or
other
isn't bad work, if the price is right and problems are low, and
I can be proud of the product quality.

The market for ESL speakers is presently almost infinitessimally small.

Patrick Turner.



But, thank you again for your painstaking description and tale. A
significant example of "doing" over "blathering".

Agreed.

Regards to all
Iain

[Peter Wieck]

On May 22, 1:29 pm, Patrick Turner wrote:

If anyone buys the kits as is, I'd recommend they take the stators to a
guy who can cut out shapes in sheet plastic, and have them
create perforated 0.8mm thick plastic PVC sheet to the same pattern of
the steel stator holes.

Patrick:

It just struck me that these people:

http://www.mcnichols.com/about/compa...holestory.html

will cut about any sheet-goods into about any pattern. In my past,
they have matched vintage radio speaker screens, top-cover patterns
and other items. Of course one has to purchase a "full sheet" in any
custom pattern, but with electrostatics, one could go through 32s.f.
in a hurry.

I sent them a bit of the OEM for a pattern, they sent me a quote and
various options... very civilized. I think it took a total of 5 days
until arrival. It may have helped that I was OK with them cutting the
sheet into much smaller pieces for shipping. The only difficulty is
whether they have a supplier at your end of the world.

Peter Wieck
Wyncote, PA

[Patrick Turner]

Peter Wieck wrote:

On May 22, 1:29 pm, Patrick Turner wrote:

If anyone buys the kits as is, I'd recommend they take the stators to a
guy who can cut out shapes in sheet plastic, and have them
create perforated 0.8mm thick plastic PVC sheet to the same pattern of
the steel stator holes.

Patrick:

It just struck me that these people:

http://www.mcnichols.com/about/compa...holestory.html

will cut about any sheet-goods into about any pattern. In my past,
they have matched vintage radio speaker screens, top-cover patterns
and other items. Of course one has to purchase a "full sheet" in any
custom pattern, but with electrostatics, one could go through 32s.f.
in a hurry.

I sent them a bit of the OEM for a pattern, they sent me a quote and
various options... very civilized. I think it took a total of 5 days
until arrival. It may have helped that I was OK with them cutting the
sheet into much smaller pieces for shipping. The only difficulty is
whether they have a supplier at your end of the world.

Peter Wieck
Wyncote, PA

McNichols are old fashioned and at the beginning of the website they say

"McNichols, and his successor Gene, built the McNICHOLS business
on a solid Christian foundation that combines fast delivery with
superior customer service."


Hmm, lets hope the Christian foundation is a sturdy one.....
Ppl are rejoicing that Fallwell died.

McN is too far away for Oz ppl, and having a 4" x 8" sheet sent here
from the US
could be a bother, so one would specify the panel sizes and have them
cut them all to size,
and ship a bundle over.

But there are ppl here who can perforate any material you supply them
because they have the gear, AND if someone is able and keen, he can
arrange to have the parts
made for any ESL he wants, which rules out most audiophiles, who are not
very keen,
are not very technical, and who don't like paying for anything.

Patrick Turner.

[bassett[_2_]]

"Patrick Turner" wrote in message

I have very much higher skills than some who might attempt to make such
things,
and of course one isn't going to hear about the failres.

Is that why you ****ed around for 3 months and got no-where.
give us a break, Your a bloody drama queen.
No wonder the bloke at the kit manufacturers told you to "sod off"

bassett

[Patrick Turner]

bassett wrote:

"Patrick Turner" wrote in message

I have very much higher skills than some who might attempt to make such
things,
and of course one isn't going to hear about the failres.

Is that why you ****ed around for 3 months and got no-where.
give us a break, Your a bloody drama queen.
No wonder the bloke at the kit manufacturers told you to "sod off"

bassett


The UK sales rep for ERA is only human, and when he had no solutions
to offer me for the problems I was having, and when I doubted the BS he
was spewing,
and i told him so,
he just lost his temper.

The guy just could not believe I was having problems.

Sales reps shouldn't do that, plain and simple.

You should be able to tip a bucket of sewerage all over a sales rep
and they should still say "..and is there any other concern you have,
sir?"

I do hope as a result of my sharing of the experience that
the UK sales rep and the CEO of kit making in Perth will
see that my concerns are not trivial, nor overly dramatic,
and is an attempt to promote the better construction of such kits
because if the price was right they'd sell more and make more profit,
and I'd know where to tell people to go if they wanted the ESL
experience.

I am not going to tell someone to sod off.

And BTW, craftwork always takes huge amounts of time and usually far
longer
than one expects to take when you start.

And you'd know that wouldn't you, and we know that, judging by the
plethera of intelligently conceived postings
about your many audio project activities over the last few years.

Patrick Turner.

[Peter Wieck]

But there are ppl here who can perforate any material you supply them
because they have the gear, AND if someone is able and keen, he can
arrange to have the parts
made for any ESL he wants, which rules out most audiophiles, who are not
very keen,
are not very technical, and who don't like paying for anything.

I would never want to imply that Australia was not fully
industrialized distance is no indication of civilization despite
rumors to the contrary...

Just that McNichol is a ready resource for NA if anyone wishes to make
an ES speaker with some of your advice taken. As you note, most of the
parts-and-pieces are available OTC if one wishes to derive for one's
self.

As to Mr. Fallwell... One might argue that he was no follower of
Christ... a far more gentle individual whatever one may make of His
purported Godhead. In any case, he will be sorted out as necessary and
appropriate in the afterlife... where it is not for us to judge.

Bad Joke: Three proofs that Christ was Italian:

a) He lived at home until he was 30.
b) His mother believed he was God.
c) He believed his mother was a virgin.

Peter Wieck
Wyncote, PA

p.s.: God clearly has a sense of humor. For absolute proof of that,
just look in a mirror.

[Patrick Turner]

Peter Wieck wrote:

But there are ppl here who can perforate any material you supply them
because they have the gear, AND if someone is able and keen, he can
arrange to have the parts
made for any ESL he wants, which rules out most audiophiles, who are not
very keen,
are not very technical, and who don't like paying for anything.

I would never want to imply that Australia was not fully
industrialized distance is no indication of civilization despite
rumors to the contrary...


Civilisation usually reduces proportionally with distance increase from
the
geometric centre point between London, Paris and Vienna.

By the time reaches Oz, the density of civilisation
has become rather thin.......

However, the further you travel towards Oz, the harder it gets to play
sport,
unless you relish being beaten all the time.

And just don't forget who is really running the US, why, Rupert Murdoch,
formerly of Adelaide.

AND I recall a boatrace in 1983 where Australia II walloped Dennis
Connor's hog of a boat.

And what's all this got to do with anything about ESL?

Well, Australia II was a toy boat thinge belonging to Alan Bond, who
later got
convicted for gross financial misbehaviour where he stole obscene sums
of money,
and spent a year in jail where for each day there he attoned for 2
million bucks.
I wish I could get only a day in jail for stealing a couple of mill;
it'd be worth it then to rob a bank, and boy, don't the banks know how
to rob....

Alan Bond, the scoundrel from Perth, has never had anything whatsoever
to do with
to any ESL ever made by anyone, and he was just human, and a bit greedy,
and surrounded by fools who trusted him with their money.

So despite the foibles of the man, he created great history for Oz in
sail boat racing,
and we conquered the greatest nation on earth, and of course I mean your
can-do razzle dazzle nation, America.

So I am always thinking that its possible for truly great things could
come out of Perth,
for example, utterly wonderful step up trannies for ESL and
ESL panels that can do at least as well as Quad ESL57.

But for those who cannot wait then if they analyse the few brief words
I've had to say about
ESL speakers in the last 3 months, maybe they'd get to know enough
to just build their own.

Just that McNichol is a ready resource for NA if anyone wishes to make
an ES speaker with some of your advice taken. As you note, most of the
parts-and-pieces are available OTC if one wishes to derive for one's
self.

As to Mr. Fallwell... One might argue that he was no follower of
Christ... a far more gentle individual whatever one may make of His
purported Godhead. In any case, he will be sorted out as necessary and
appropriate in the afterlife... where it is not for us to judge.

Modern Evanjellykal Pentodicostal religion seems to be
messageing ppl with "Go forth and make money, for money is blessed."

In fact if your'e poor, its a sign God doesn't like you much.

Serious Christians now say that mainstream religion has basically become
corrupt
and the general message is all heresy, ie, they run on BS.


Its no use trying to tell modern religious ppl that a camel
has more chance of walking through the eye of a needle than
a rich man's chances of getting to heaven.
Charity for the poor? Huh? let em starve to death!



Bad Joke: Three proofs that Christ was Italian:

a) He lived at home until he was 30.
b) His mother believed he was God.
c) He believed his mother was a virgin.

Didja read that in the last chapter of Richard Dawkin's latest book?


Peter Wieck
Wyncote, PA

p.s.: God clearly has a sense of humor. For absolute proof of that,
just look in a mirror.

And he has a vern stern enforcer, the God Of Triodes,
who is in charge of thousands of volts and Smoke.

Patrick Turner.

[bassett[_2_]]

"Patrick Turner" wrote in message
...


bassett wrote:

"Patrick Turner" wrote in message

I have very much higher skills than some who might attempt to make such
things,
and of course one isn't going to hear about the failres.

Is that why you ****ed around for 3 months and got no-where.
give us a break, Your a bloody drama queen.
No wonder the bloke at the kit manufacturers told you to "sod
off"

bassett


The UK sales rep for ERA is only human, and when he had no solutions
to offer me for the problems I was having, and when I doubted the BS he
was spewing, and i told him so, he just lost his temper.

****** I don't blame him,, You went on and on, about things you
obversely no nothing about, and he had better things to do, then
lesson to your bull-****.
Frankly, I would have hung up in your ear.

The guy just could not believe I was having problems.

*****Obversely, There quite a simple operation to construct, to
everyone BUT you.

Sales reps shouldn't do that, plain and simple.

*****He probable had better things to do, then to hear you grip
about nothing.

You should be able to tip a bucket of sewerage all over a sales rep
and they should still say "..and is there any other concern you have,
sir?"

******Turner rants on about total irelevent rubbish

I do hope as a result of my sharing of the experience that
the UK sales rep and the CEO of kit making in Perth will
see that my concerns are not trivial, nor overly dramatic,
and is an attempt to promote the better construction of such kits
because if the price was right they'd sell more and make more profit,
and I'd know where to tell people to go if they wanted the ESL
experience.

******* Don't kid yourself. He forgot about you, the minute he
put the phone down.
Do you really think, they will care, or go out of business, Simply
because you ****ed up, on one of there kit's I very much doubt it.

I am not going to tell someone to sod off.

And BTW, craftwork always takes huge amounts of time and usually far
longer than one expects to take when you start.

**** Only when you have no bloody idea what your doing. You seem to
make the simpleset job's more complecated , Simply because it suits
your over inflated ego

And you'd know that wouldn't you, and we know that, judging by the
plethera of intelligently conceived postings
about your many audio project activities over the last few years.
Patrick Turner.

*** You haven't got the remotest idea what I do, or what I'm involved
in.
Fortunatly, we don't all proclaim our achievements or in your case
failure's from the rooftops. Simply because no-one's interested in
what I do, Just as long as it's done. I really don't need to
promote myself. Lets just say, I do very nicly , thanks very
much, I don't disturb the taxman, and he does not disturb me.
And lets face it, If you where as busy as you profess, in your
garden shed
[how quant] You would have no time to write reams and reams of
unintersting
gobble-de-goo on news groups. Now would you.
But as you do everything so bloody perfect, You can have my
share of the perfect world. I have no need for perfection, I,m
far too busy with a dope crop to manage.

bassett

[Patrick Turner]

bassett wrote:

"Patrick Turner" wrote in message
...


bassett wrote:

"Patrick Turner" wrote in message

I have very much higher skills than some who might attempt to make such
things,
and of course one isn't going to hear about the failres.

Is that why you ****ed around for 3 months and got no-where.
give us a break, Your a bloody drama queen.
No wonder the bloke at the kit manufacturers told you to "sod
off"

bassett


The UK sales rep for ERA is only human, and when he had no solutions
to offer me for the problems I was having, and when I doubted the BS he
was spewing, and i told him so, he just lost his temper.

****** I don't blame him,, You went on and on, about things you
obversely no nothing about, and he had better things to do, then
lesson to your bull-****.
Frankly, I would have hung up in your ear.

But your ARE WRONG THIS TIME BASSET.

You are making up whatever you think may have happened without being
present
to witness anything. Here is where you can't hang up on me, and
creating an argument with me based on YOUR confabulations is only going
to
end up making you look a fool.

The guy just could not believe I was having problems.

*****Obversely, There quite a simple operation to construct, to
everyone BUT you.

You can't say this and mean it because you have never bought one of
these kits and tried to
get some passable performance.

You are spewing BS and you don't know what your'e talking about.

Sales reps shouldn't do that, plain and simple.

*****He probable had better things to do, then to hear you grip
about nothing.

You should be able to tip a bucket of sewerage all over a sales rep
and they should still say "..and is there any other concern you have,
sir?"

******Turner rants on about total irelevent rubbish


Readers should ask just what constructive technical advice he can give
on the matter.



I do hope as a result of my sharing of the experience that
the UK sales rep and the CEO of kit making in Perth will
see that my concerns are not trivial, nor overly dramatic,
and is an attempt to promote the better construction of such kits
because if the price was right they'd sell more and make more profit,
and I'd know where to tell people to go if they wanted the ESL
experience.

******* Don't kid yourself. He forgot about you, the minute he
put the phone down.


There was NEVER any phone call between myself and the UK sales rep who
finished up being rude to me.
Only emails, and no, I won't be posting the emails here.

There is no point.
I will rather concentrate only on the technical issues with these
ESL and what one sales rep does or doesn't do can't really affect me.

My relations with the CEO at ERA has always been cordial and friendly,
but the guy can't be expected to work miracles from afar.

And I can't work miracles either, and I can only
describe what i find and its up to ERA to decide to try some of my ideas
for which I have offered free advice, so the product could be slightly
better.


Do you really think, they will care, or go out of business, Simply
because you ****ed up, on one of there kit's I very much doubt it.



I have every reason to believe that these ERA ESL-IIIB kits and perhaps
the other
sizes and types of panels can sustain problems of membranes sticking to
stators
if the EHT is turned up too high.
With EHT below 2,700V, sensitivity is poor compared to other speakers.

I had two guys come around today for a listen to the panel i have
running.
Both confirmed their dismay with the performance because of very limited
bass ability,
even with only 60uF in series with the panel which give a bass cut off
at about 150Hz.
The quality of bass seemed "fragile", lacking body and firmness, bloom,
and the
good points produced by very good bass reflex speakers such as the
Sublime
at my speaker website pages.

Overall my dynamics give an overall better sound than these ESL,
and a much higher acoustic ceiling.
In the second test I used a 300watt SS amp which gave the cleanest sound
and voltage levels on the level meters swung to hover around 20Vrms
with occasional farting noises when heavy bass was present.
The same levels of sound could be produced by such a lower allpied
voltage into
my dynamics that the amplifier voltage meters didn't get off the blocks.

At times we clipped the 300 watt amp on ESL, but not with dynamics.

We also tried the Musical Fidelity A3 amp, 120W/8ohms, and
it also ran out of headroom s very easily.

My customer and myself are wondering where to go from here.
We think we may get some better step up transformers wound
to prevent any possible saturation effects which I think are
curtailing bass performance and muddying the sound
at normal levels.


I am not going to tell someone to sod off.

And BTW, craftwork always takes huge amounts of time and usually far
longer than one expects to take when you start.

**** Only when you have no bloody idea what your doing. You seem to
make the simpleset job's more complecated , Simply because it suits
your over inflated ego

Total BS Basset, you have zero idea about making anything.

Construction of these kits ONLY is possible by very
technically competent ppl.

Ppl who are used to plug and play and exist in a world where everything
ever made is easy
and simple and the sales ppl never tell lies and know all about the
product living in a fantasy land.

Before you have ANY credibility on this topic thread, kindly purchase an
ESL-IIIB kit
from Mr Mackinlay in Perth, and build the kit and then this might change
your idiotic
opinions.


And you'd know that wouldn't you, and we know that, judging by the
plethera of intelligently conceived postings
about your many audio project activities over the last few years.
Patrick Turner.

*** You haven't got the remotest idea what I do, or what I'm involved
in.
Fortunatly, we don't all proclaim our achievements or in your case
failure's from the rooftops. Simply because no-one's interested in
what I do, Just as long as it's done. I really don't need to
promote myself.

And lets just say then you do hardly anything at all.

Lets just say, I do very nicly , thanks very
much, I don't disturb the taxman, and he does not disturb me.
And lets face it, If you where as busy as you profess, in your
garden shed
[how quant] You would have no time to write reams and reams of
unintersting
gobble-de-goo on news groups. Now would you.
But as you do everything so bloody perfect, You can have my
share of the perfect world. I have no need for perfection, I,m
far too busy with a dope crop to manage.

bassett


Basset, you'e a fool. You are so **** week you have to adopt the name of
a dog
for your online name, and haven't got the courage to tell us the
truth about yourself, and so we can only assume you make nothing anytime
anywhere,
and when someone else does and describes the experience in detail,
you start bull****ting to try to point out I am wrong without the
slightest
attempt to proove all i have said technically is plain incorrect.

Your attempt at acting all coy and private is
one which prevents light ever being shone upon your gross technical
incompetence.


So Basset, for you to gain any credibility on the issue, you will have
to study
all the technical issues about ESL construction, and then
lodge a thoughtful argument, as well as of course successfully build one
of these kits.

I challenge to do this Basset, rather than prove to all here who have an
IQ over 60
that your IQ is only 65.

So what would you have happen out of all this discussion?

Just accept whatever ERA sell to ppl without any appraisals, anytime?

Never ever deal with rational thoughts, ideas, arguments?

Patrick Turner.

[bassett[_2_]]

Firstly, Mr Turner, or should that be "Mother Turner" I'm not about
to bandy words, with the likes of you, Unlike you I have better
things to do with my life.

But having said that, All I did was quote what you said, or What
you printed, The trouble is , you rattle of more rubbish then a
Weelie bin on heat, it's hard for you to remember what you have
said.

But I well use a couple of your quotes, if I may. but I,m buggered if
I,m going to answer every rant and rave you go on with, I'ts total
pointless, and unfortunatly for you. I,m not "Phill" and am not
about to desend to your level, in a debate about bugger all.

Quote one from "Mother"
Readers should ask just what constructive technical advice he can give
on the matter.

Firstly, you wrote a thousand words about membranes, dinning room
tables , House bricks, Now that is very technicial, when you have to
rely on a bloody housebrick to obtain a result, and the high cost of
fish glue.
Right , here's the drum on how to do it. get a lump of glass,
stretch the membraine over the glass, Spray the frame with Glue, Drop
frame on "stretched membrane " Then when it's dry do the other one.
Total time about 20 minutes.

is that technicial enough for you.

Quote two from "mother"
But your ARE WRONG THIS TIME BASSET.

I,m wrong quite a bit of the time, But hay, no-one really cares, If
you never do anything, never go anywhere, LIKE you, then your never
wrong.
but one thing "Cherib" there's Two "T" in bassett

Quote three from "Mother''
There was NEVER any phone call between myself and the UK sales rep who
finished up being rude to me.

So was the nasty man rude to you "lov", never mind, suck your
orange.

Quote four from "mother''
Total BS Basset, you have zero idea about making anything.

Let me tell you , "son" I do alright, in my own little way, There's
always a quid in my pocket, food on the table, and pussy when
required.. Life is good.

Quote five from "mother"
Basset, you'e a fool.

I,m a fool, your the one ****ing around with a set of speakers, you
have no consept off construction off for three months. We knocked up
a set of those things in a weekend. sure I'm Stupid, I would have to
be to waist my valuable time discussing anything with you.

Quote six from "mother"
You are so **** week you have to adopt the name of a dog for your online
name, and haven't got the courage to tell us the truth about yourself,
and so we can only assume you make nothing anytime anywhere,

You've blown it right there "porkchop" Totaly lost it in fact, I can
see your little moon face getting redder and redder. And the correct
spelling is **** WEAK, with an "A" lov, with an "A"
As for my Monica, I,ve always been "bassett" with a couple of
"T's" everyone knows me as "the dog'' But there are people on here
who know who I am.. And really it's none of your business, what I call
myself.
As for making stuff,, While I might have a little dick, I can
fill a ****'in pram, just ask my X's Bless-um. They love me, even
if you don't.

But you really shouldn't get so wound up, your heading for a bloody
heart attack. Then what would we all do for entertainment.

Quote seven from "mother"
So Basset, for you to gain any credibility on the issue, you will have
to study all the technical issues about ESL construction, and then
lodge a thoughtful argument, as well as of course successfully build one
of these kits.

No chance 'sunshine' I bassett have far more important things to do.
frankly I don't care, Been there, done that. But I was just
commenting on your total incompedence on building something, which is
sold quite successfully throughout the world, and built by many
people, without all the troubles you had. just perhaps, if you forgot
all your self taught knowledge , and lets not forget, for all your
bluster, you have no formal training. You might get somewhere, But
alas, I very much doubt it. Not with your attatude of "I'm Right"'
and the rest of the population is wrong.

But on a high note, At least you have now learned , that you only get
what you pay for, Your mate, spent two grand on a speaker kit,
when in fact the real thing would have cost him 20 grand .. Like we
always say, "pay peanut's get monkeys"
But if you want a cheap set of Electro's give us a bell, I'll find
you a set at the right price.

Quote Eight from "mother"
I challenge to do this Basset, rather than prove to all here who have an
IQ over 60 that your IQ is only 65.

Don't you worry about my IQ "cherib" I can make more money on the
phone for 10 minutes then you make in a month.
As I said, I do OK. My three X's all have nice homes , I have a
nice home,
The sun is shining, the dope crop has been gathered for another year.
And for all your so-called technicial ability YOU don't even own
the land your little shack, and garden shed are constructed on. What
does that tell us.

But in the end, You have had fun, with your little speaker kit,
even if it was a total cock-up, from day one. And your the one who
advertised the fact, that your totaly incompedent to construct
something of that caliber, I myself would have dug a hole and buried
them. And then kept quite.

But really your right out of your league , attenpting to match words
with "I" , you stick to discussions with people like Phill, There
more to your level.

Anyway Cherib, it's been entertaining, I was hoping we would reach 12
quotes, then we could have had a 12 step program, and God only knows
you need it, never mind, until next time,
Lov bassett


..

[Patrick Turner]

Basset wrote a pile of dog turds under this heading in a dismal attempt
to discredit and defame me.

What else could anyone expect from a technically illiterate person/dog
who says
"I,m wrong quite a bit of the time,....."

Go back to your kennel basset, and don't come out unless there is
something
worth barking at.


Patrick Turner.




:

Firstly, Mr Turner, or should that be "Mother Turner" I'm not about
to bandy words, with the likes of you, Unlike you I have better
things to do with my life.

But having said that, All I did was quote what you said, or What
you printed, The trouble is , you rattle of more rubbish then a
Weelie bin on heat, it's hard for you to remember what you have
said.

But I well use a couple of your quotes, if I may. but I,m buggered if
I,m going to answer every rant and rave you go on with, I'ts total
pointless, and unfortunatly for you. I,m not "Phill" and am not
about to desend to your level, in a debate about bugger all.

Quote one from "Mother"
Readers should ask just what constructive technical advice he can give
on the matter.

Firstly, you wrote a thousand words about membranes, dinning room
tables , House bricks, Now that is very technicial, when you have to
rely on a bloody housebrick to obtain a result, and the high cost of
fish glue.
Right , here's the drum on how to do it. get a lump of glass,
stretch the membraine over the glass, Spray the frame with Glue, Drop
frame on "stretched membrane " Then when it's dry do the other one.
Total time about 20 minutes.

is that technicial enough for you.

Quote two from "mother"
But your ARE WRONG THIS TIME BASSET.

I,m wrong quite a bit of the time, But hay, no-one really cares, If
you never do anything, never go anywhere, LIKE you, then your never
wrong.
but one thing "Cherib" there's Two "T" in bassett

Quote three from "Mother''
There was NEVER any phone call between myself and the UK sales rep who
finished up being rude to me.

So was the nasty man rude to you "lov", never mind, suck your
orange.

Quote four from "mother''
Total BS Basset, you have zero idea about making anything.

Let me tell you , "son" I do alright, in my own little way, There's
always a quid in my pocket, food on the table, and pussy when
required.. Life is good.

Quote five from "mother"
Basset, you'e a fool.

I,m a fool, your the one ****ing around with a set of speakers, you
have no consept off construction off for three months. We knocked up
a set of those things in a weekend. sure I'm Stupid, I would have to
be to waist my valuable time discussing anything with you.

Quote six from "mother"
You are so **** week you have to adopt the name of a dog for your online
name, and haven't got the courage to tell us the truth about yourself,
and so we can only assume you make nothing anytime anywhere,

You've blown it right there "porkchop" Totaly lost it in fact, I can
see your little moon face getting redder and redder. And the correct
spelling is **** WEAK, with an "A" lov, with an "A"
As for my Monica, I,ve always been "bassett" with a couple of
"T's" everyone knows me as "the dog'' But there are people on here
who know who I am.. And really it's none of your business, what I call
myself.
As for making stuff,, While I might have a little dick, I can
fill a ****'in pram, just ask my X's Bless-um. They love me, even
if you don't.

But you really shouldn't get so wound up, your heading for a bloody
heart attack. Then what would we all do for entertainment.

Quote seven from "mother"
So Basset, for you to gain any credibility on the issue, you will have
to study all the technical issues about ESL construction, and then
lodge a thoughtful argument, as well as of course successfully build one
of these kits.

No chance 'sunshine' I bassett have far more important things to do.
frankly I don't care, Been there, done that. But I was just
commenting on your total incompedence on building something, which is
sold quite successfully throughout the world, and built by many
people, without all the troubles you had. just perhaps, if you forgot
all your self taught knowledge , and lets not forget, for all your
bluster, you have no formal training. You might get somewhere, But
alas, I very much doubt it. Not with your attatude of "I'm Right"'
and the rest of the population is wrong.

But on a high note, At least you have now learned , that you only get
what you pay for, Your mate, spent two grand on a speaker kit,
when in fact the real thing would have cost him 20 grand .. Like we
always say, "pay peanut's get monkeys"
But if you want a cheap set of Electro's give us a bell, I'll find
you a set at the right price.

Quote Eight from "mother"
I challenge to do this Basset, rather than prove to all here who have an
IQ over 60 that your IQ is only 65.

Don't you worry about my IQ "cherib" I can make more money on the
phone for 10 minutes then you make in a month.
As I said, I do OK. My three X's all have nice homes , I have a
nice home,
The sun is shining, the dope crop has been gathered for another year.
And for all your so-called technicial ability YOU don't even own
the land your little shack, and garden shed are constructed on. What
does that tell us.

But in the end, You have had fun, with your little speaker kit,
even if it was a total cock-up, from day one. And your the one who
advertised the fact, that your totaly incompedent to construct
something of that caliber, I myself would have dug a hole and buried
them. And then kept quite.

But really your right out of your league , attenpting to match words
with "I" , you stick to discussions with people like Phill, There
more to your level.

Anyway Cherib, it's been entertaining, I was hoping we would reach 12
quotes, then we could have had a 12 step program, and God only knows
you need it, never mind, until next time,
Lov bassett

.

[Eeyore]

bassett wrote:

Firstly, Mr Turner, or should that be "Mother Turner" I'm not about
to bandy words, with the likes of you, Unlike you I have better
things to do with my life.

WOOF !

[Andre Jute]

bassett wrote:
I'm not about to bandy words

But you do, 1058 of them according to the word counter in Microsoft
Word.

We knocked up a set of those things in a weekend.

That's great! Publish your measurements of the completed electrostats
so we can compare them with Patrick's measurements and decide if you
did the job right or just botched it faster than usual.

Your complete post is below in all its illiterate glory.

Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Amps at http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/
"wonderfully well written and reasoned information
for the tube audio constructor"
John Broskie TubeCAD & GlassWare
"an unbelievably comprehensive web site
containing vital gems of wisdom"
Stuart Perry Hi-Fi News & Record Review

Here is the complete post from "bassett":

bassett wrote:
Firstly, Mr Turner, or should that be "Mother Turner" I'm not about
to bandy words, with the likes of you, Unlike you I have better
things to do with my life.

But having said that, All I did was quote what you said, or What
you printed, The trouble is , you rattle of more rubbish then a
Weelie bin on heat, it's hard for you to remember what you have
said.

But I well use a couple of your quotes, if I may. but I,m buggered if
I,m going to answer every rant and rave you go on with, I'ts total
pointless, and unfortunatly for you. I,m not "Phill" and am not
about to desend to your level, in a debate about bugger all.

Quote one from "Mother"
Readers should ask just what constructive technical advice he can give
on the matter.

Firstly, you wrote a thousand words about membranes, dinning room
tables , House bricks, Now that is very technicial, when you have to
rely on a bloody housebrick to obtain a result, and the high cost of
fish glue.
Right , here's the drum on how to do it. get a lump of glass,
stretch the membraine over the glass, Spray the frame with Glue, Drop
frame on "stretched membrane " Then when it's dry do the other one.
Total time about 20 minutes.

is that technicial enough for you.

Quote two from "mother"
But your ARE WRONG THIS TIME BASSET.

I,m wrong quite a bit of the time, But hay, no-one really cares, If
you never do anything, never go anywhere, LIKE you, then your never
wrong.
but one thing "Cherib" there's Two "T" in bassett

Quote three from "Mother''
There was NEVER any phone call between myself and the UK sales rep who
finished up being rude to me.

So was the nasty man rude to you "lov", never mind, suck your
orange.

Quote four from "mother''
Total BS Basset, you have zero idea about making anything.

Let me tell you , "son" I do alright, in my own little way, There's
always a quid in my pocket, food on the table, and pussy when
required.. Life is good.

Quote five from "mother"
Basset, you'e a fool.

I,m a fool, your the one ****ing around with a set of speakers, you
have no consept off construction off for three months. We knocked up
a set of those things in a weekend. sure I'm Stupid, I would have to
be to waist my valuable time discussing anything with you.

Quote six from "mother"
You are so **** week you have to adopt the name of a dog for your online
name, and haven't got the courage to tell us the truth about yourself,
and so we can only assume you make nothing anytime anywhere,

You've blown it right there "porkchop" Totaly lost it in fact, I can
see your little moon face getting redder and redder. And the correct
spelling is **** WEAK, with an "A" lov, with an "A"
As for my Monica, I,ve always been "bassett" with a couple of
"T's" everyone knows me as "the dog'' But there are people on here
who know who I am.. And really it's none of your business, what I call
myself.
As for making stuff,, While I might have a little dick, I can
fill a ****'in pram, just ask my X's Bless-um. They love me, even
if you don't.

But you really shouldn't get so wound up, your heading for a bloody
heart attack. Then what would we all do for entertainment.

Quote seven from "mother"
So Basset, for you to gain any credibility on the issue, you will have
to study all the technical issues about ESL construction, and then
lodge a thoughtful argument, as well as of course successfully build one
of these kits.

No chance 'sunshine' I bassett have far more important things to do.
frankly I don't care, Been there, done that. But I was just
commenting on your total incompedence on building something, which is
sold quite successfully throughout the world, and built by many
people, without all the troubles you had. just perhaps, if you forgot
all your self taught knowledge , and lets not forget, for all your
bluster, you have no formal training. You might get somewhere, But
alas, I very much doubt it. Not with your attatude of "I'm Right"'
and the rest of the population is wrong.

But on a high note, At least you have now learned , that you only get
what you pay for, Your mate, spent two grand on a speaker kit,
when in fact the real thing would have cost him 20 grand .. Like we
always say, "pay peanut's get monkeys"
But if you want a cheap set of Electro's give us a bell, I'll find
you a set at the right price.

Quote Eight from "mother"
I challenge to do this Basset, rather than prove to all here who have an
IQ over 60 that your IQ is only 65.

Don't you worry about my IQ "cherib" I can make more money on the
phone for 10 minutes then you make in a month.
As I said, I do OK. My three X's all have nice homes , I have a
nice home,
The sun is shining, the dope crop has been gathered for another year.
And for all your so-called technicial ability YOU don't even own
the land your little shack, and garden shed are constructed on. What
does that tell us.

But in the end, You have had fun, with your little speaker kit,
even if it was a total cock-up, from day one. And your the one who
advertised the fact, that your totaly incompedent to construct
something of that caliber, I myself would have dug a hole and buried
them. And then kept quite.

But really your right out of your league , attenpting to match words
with "I" , you stick to discussions with people like Phill, There
more to your level.

Anyway Cherib, it's been entertaining, I was hoping we would reach 12
quotes, then we could have had a 12 step program, and God only knows
you need it, never mind, until next time,
Lov bassett


.

[Patrick Turner]

Andre Jute wrote:

bassett wrote:
I'm not about to bandy words

But you do, 1058 of them according to the word counter in Microsoft
Word.

We knocked up a set of those things in a weekend.

That's great! Publish your measurements of the completed electrostats
so we can compare them with Patrick's measurements and decide if you
did the job right or just botched it faster than usual.

Your complete post is below in all its illiterate glory.


I am not quite done with the summation of last Saturday's listening
experiences
with the ERA ESL-IIIB speakers.

I need to be a little more concise in my descriptions of just what
voltages at just what frequencies levels seem to cause the
early onset of all too easily audible distortions and membrane flapping
between their limits of travel.
I also need to more precisely graph the bass and treble responses
graphically.

Unless I analyse fully, nothing is learnt, so another day is ahead of me
for
measuring these things.

I have to set up a CRO and adjust the settings to display
when 40Vrms occupies a full screen, or 10Vrms per 12mm distance between
horizontal
graticle lines.

With the CRO fed with an input sine waves, pink noise or music signals,
I can very readily tell what maximum levels can be applied
and so some comparisons with my dynamics.

Without exactly knowing what SPL can be attained with applied voltages,
it would hard to know exactly how it could be possible to improve these
speakers,
which is the basic aim of my discussions.

The way I see things with regard to bass performance can be explained...

The ERA panels with 2.4mm between membranes and stators can have a safe
application of -2.7kV charge to the membrane.

The forces acting on the membrane to produce the sound
vary proportionately to a constant k x V squared / d squared where
V is the difference of voltage between stator and membrane, and d is the
distance between the two.

So for comparison with various speakers, lets consider the
ERA with EHT= -2.7kV.
The maximum AC signal possible for linear operation
is +/- 2.7kV peak, so when there is 5.4kV peak to peak
stator to stator applied, there is 5.4kV between one stator and the
membrane,
and 0.0V between the other stator and membrane.
So at this instant there is only an attractive force from one stator to
the membrane

Force of electrostatic attraction is proportional to k x ( V/d )
squared,
or k x ( 5.4kV / 2.4mm ) all squared, = k x 5.06 units, whatever they
are in newtons, grams, etc.

Compare this to a Quad ESL57.

EHT = 6kV, and d = 4mm, and by the same reasoning we can get a
figure for k x ( V/d ) squared = k x ( 12/4 ) squared = k x 9.0

It would appear the Quad could develop a greater maximum force
on its membranes compared to ERA, unless
I were to be able to raise EHT to about 1.4 times the 2.7kV
I am using now.
But unfortunately, increasing EHT to 3.8kV simply makes the bass
membrane
flop over hard against a stator, even without the provocation of an
applied ac signal.

Because the areas of the ERA bass panels are so similar to ESL57,
then both would be capable of producing the same SPL
if the membrane was allowed to to move an equal distance.

The ERA speaker has 1:90 SUT turn ratio, so to get 5.4kV p-p at stators
which is 1,908Vrms at each stator, or 3,816Vrms stator to stator,
you need 42.4Vrms at the primary.

The Quad ESL57 speaker could perhaps sustain 12kV p-p
applied from the bass taps on their SUT.
so each stator has a max of 4,242Vrms, giving 8,484 stator to stator
and because the SUT bass frequency turn ratio is 1:290 then primary
input will be 29.25Vrms.

So with 42Vrms applied to ERA, a force of 5.06 units is possible, and
for
29Vrms applied to a Quad ESL57, a force of 9.0 units is possible,
or put another way, if 29Vrms is applied to ERA speakers you'd get
a force of only (29/42) x 5 = 3.45 units, and this is nearly
a third of the force created in the Quads, and it explains
the poor sensitivity of SPL per volt applied.

I apologise for the poor mathematical reasoning, but
NOBODY ELSE ON THE INTERNET has seen fit to provide everyone with any
detailed understandable
analysis behind the design for ESL speakers which relates the
main 4 parameters of the operation.
These are...

Membrane to stator distance,

EHT charge level on the membrane,

Applied signal voltages possible,

Maximum allowable membrane movement distance.

By working out what voltage is needed at the stators
to give a working safe maximum SPL,
one can work out the turn ratio required for the SUT.

From this the maximum possible voltage applied to the primary can be
worked,
and the turns per volt so that the B max remains below 0.6 Tesla at
50Hz,
or below 1.5 T at 20Hz when saturation will be a problem.

I recall the ESL63 have two SUTs, one for each stator, each with 1:100
ratio,
giving a total 1:200 voltage ratio.

Apparently it was easier to make two trannies of 1:100
rather than one with 1:200.

However, shunt C of the tranny needs to be low and the higher the Z
ratio,
the higher the treble panel C and the tranny self capacitances are
transformed to a large
capacitance at the input.

ESL57 overcame the problem reasonably well with their design of SUT, and
detailed by Peter Baxandal in his 1957 equivalent circuit for the ESL57
which is a fine read of what nearly every
amateur or professional has forgotten about, and dare not write about
on the Internet.

Despite the large size of the Quad ESL57 SUT, the shunt C
between ends of the bass windings is only 35pF
which becomes 290 x 290 x 35pF at the primary, ie, 2.9uF.

ERA have 390pF at the sec which becomes 90 x 90 x 390 = 3.16uF.

If the ERA were to have a higher SUT ratio, say 1:200,
and capacitance was kept to 50pF, at the input there would be about
2.0uF.

This would be a vast improvement over the existing SUT.

Its not all that easy to make an SUT with so little shunt C!

During discussions with my customer we are thinking of using an
alternative
SUT wound here in Oz to my exacting spec by a guy in Sydney used to
winding all my designs which I have
specified for a colleague there also making tube amps.
I have not got the time myself.

We are also thinking of using a full range reflex dynamic woofer
in a box mounted below the ESL panels instead of trying to force the
panels to perform the gymnastics required for full bass production.

The bass speakers would need to be driven from a much lower voltage than
that applied to the
ESL panels so there would need to be taps on the primary
to achieve the required bass voltages.




Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Amps at http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/
"wonderfully well written and reasoned information
for the tube audio constructor"
John Broskie TubeCAD & GlassWare
"an unbelievably comprehensive web site
containing vital gems of wisdom"
Stuart Perry Hi-Fi News & Record Review

Here is the complete post from "bassett":

Basset's post is deleted due to lack of useful technical content.

Patrick Turner.

[Fun Tyme]

Patrick Turner wrote:

Basset's post is deleted due to lack of useful technical content.

Patrick Turner.

Bassett gets upset when any technical information is posted.

This is due to his unfortunate position of extreme ignorance and lack of
electronic and technical skills. He cannot understand anything technical
and in his anguish posts utter rubbish in an effort to denigrate anyone
who does possess skills and knowledge.....childish !

Bassett claims to read much on the internet, but reading and
comprehension are two distinct functions. Any reasonable person would
expect to learn spelling and grammar by simple association, in the
Bassett case (Basket case ?!), this is not apparent in any measure.

The man is full of **** and wind, and a fool no less, resorts to foul
language when cornered, cannot be wrong, cannot be told.

It is apparent Bassett is angry with the world, possibly due to his
being a "pom", and maybe his miserable failure as a human forces his
alter-ego of a dog.

Proceed Mr. Turner, your technical writing certainly has a place here,
unlike the rantings of a confused canine.

[bassett[_2_]]

"Andre Jute" wrote in message
oups.com...
bassett wrote:
I'm not about to bandy words

But you do, 1058 of them according to the word counter in Microsoft
Word.

We knocked up a set of those things in a weekend.

That's great! Publish your measurements of the completed electrostats
so we can compare them with Patrick's measurements and decide if you
did the job right or just botched it faster than usual.

Your complete post is below in all its illiterate glory.

Andre Jute
No one invited you into the debate, Cum Stain,, so **** off

[bassett[_2_]]

"Fun Tyme" wrote in message

Bassett gets upset when any technical information is posted

This is due to his unfortunate position of extreme ignorance and lack of
electronic and technical skills. He cannot understand anything technical
and in his anguish posts utter rubbish in an effort to denigrate anyone
who does possess skills and knowledge.....childish !

Bassett claims to read much on the internet, but reading and comprehension
are two distinct functions. Any reasonable person would expect to learn
spelling and grammar by simple association, in the Bassett case (Basket
case ?!), this is not apparent in any measure.

The man is full of **** and wind, and a fool no less, resorts to foul
language when cornered, cannot be wrong, cannot be told.

It is apparent Bassett is angry with the world, possibly due to his being
a "pom", and maybe his miserable failure as a human forces his alter-ego
of a dog.

Proceed Mr. Turner, your technical writing certainly has a place here,
unlike the rantings of a confused canine.


I,m lost for words,, total lost.
and I might well be all **** and wind, but I'm big enough to sit you on
your arse.

bassett

[Patrick Turner]

Basset, you are a true ****wit.

The act of posting to a public news group

IS THE ACTION OF INVITING REPLIES FROM ANYONE OUT THERE.

So its no use getting upset when someone you don't like replies to your
posts.

I don't like you. Everyone else thinks you are jerk;
One said you have a serious mental problem because you
identify yourself as a dog, rather than a man, and you posted a picture
of your home, a doghouse to r.a.t, even though images are not allowed at
the news groups.

So think twice before you post more rubbish to us.

Patrick Turner.





bassett wrote:

"Andre Jute" wrote in message
oups.com...
bassett wrote:
I'm not about to bandy words

But you do, 1058 of them according to the word counter in Microsoft
Word.

We knocked up a set of those things in a weekend.

That's great! Publish your measurements of the completed electrostats
so we can compare them with Patrick's measurements and decide if you
did the job right or just botched it faster than usual.

Your complete post is below in all its illiterate glory.

Andre Jute
No one invited you into the debate, Cum Stain,, so **** off

[Fun Tyme]

bassett wrote:
"Fun Tyme" wrote in message

Bassett gets upset when any technical information is posted

This is due to his unfortunate position of extreme ignorance and lack of
electronic and technical skills. He cannot understand anything technical
and in his anguish posts utter rubbish in an effort to denigrate anyone
who does possess skills and knowledge.....childish !

Bassett claims to read much on the internet, but reading and comprehension
are two distinct functions. Any reasonable person would expect to learn
spelling and grammar by simple association, in the Bassett case (Basket
case ?!), this is not apparent in any measure.

The man is full of **** and wind, and a fool no less, resorts to foul
language when cornered, cannot be wrong, cannot be told.

It is apparent Bassett is angry with the world, possibly due to his being
a "pom", and maybe his miserable failure as a human forces his alter-ego
of a dog.

Proceed Mr. Turner, your technical writing certainly has a place here,
unlike the rantings of a confused canine.


I,m lost for words,, total lost.
and I might well be all **** and wind, but I'm big enough to sit you on
your arse.

bassett



Bluster, bluster !

Beaten senseless by a few words the dogman wants to bite !

Total lost is correct...whatever that means.

Get in your box internet bully boy dog thing.

[bassett[_2_]]

"Fun Tyme" wrote in message
...
bassett wrote:
"Fun Tyme" wrote in message

Bassett gets upset when any technical information is posted

This is due to his unfortunate position of extreme ignorance and lack of
electronic and technical skills. He cannot understand anything technical
and in his anguish posts utter rubbish in an effort to denigrate anyone
who does possess skills and knowledge.....childish !

Bassett claims to read much on the internet, but reading and
comprehension are two distinct functions. Any reasonable person would
expect to learn spelling and grammar by simple association, in the
Bassett case (Basket case ?!), this is not apparent in any measure.

The man is full of **** and wind, and a fool no less, resorts to foul
language when cornered, cannot be wrong, cannot be told.

It is apparent Bassett is angry with the world, possibly due to his
being a "pom", and maybe his miserable failure as a human forces his
alter-ego of a dog.

Proceed Mr. Turner, your technical writing certainly has a place here,
unlike the rantings of a confused canine.


I,m lost for words,, total lost.
and I might well be all **** and wind, but I'm big enough to sit you
on your arse.

bassett

Bluster, bluster !

Beaten senseless by a few words the dogman wants to bite !

Total lost is correct...whatever that means.

Get in your box internet bully boy dog thing.

Well there you go, looks like I got you to bite,,, It's really
not that hard.

As for your first pathetic post, you remember the one, where you
went of in an uncontrollable rant, about my short comings,

The point was, thousands and thousands of these kits have been sold
world wide, to just ordinary people without any formal training, Bit
like Mr Turner, and no doubt yourself. And the surprising thing is
they all got the things to work.
I know of three people who bought them, and surprise, surprise,
there all working quite well.

But you come along and run your mouth to defend the undefendable , The
highly self taught experts, who was completely stuffed with the consept
of joining part "A" to part "B" and so on.. He and his little
friend Jute, another self confessed expert with no formal training , go
on about measurements, which don't really mean ****, when you consider
it's a kit with all the components, which have been tested over time, and
are known to give a good result, regardless of being tested, So really
it's a pointless exercise, when the results have no connection with the
end result of a kit. or to put in terms your limited intellect will
understand. If the things are put together correctly, they will give the
result, there intended to give.

As for me claiming to read a lot on the internet, nothing could be
further from the truth, but that's just you once again running your
big mouth.

So I suggest you run along and help defend the undefinable, as the
Dynamic duo need all the help they can get, Off you go.

bassett

[Patrick Turner]

bassett wrote:

"Fun Tyme" wrote in message
...
bassett wrote:
"Fun Tyme" wrote in message

Bassett gets upset when any technical information is posted

This is due to his unfortunate position of extreme ignorance and lack of
electronic and technical skills. He cannot understand anything technical
and in his anguish posts utter rubbish in an effort to denigrate anyone
who does possess skills and knowledge.....childish !

Bassett claims to read much on the internet, but reading and
comprehension are two distinct functions. Any reasonable person would
expect to learn spelling and grammar by simple association, in the
Bassett case (Basket case ?!), this is not apparent in any measure.

The man is full of **** and wind, and a fool no less, resorts to foul
language when cornered, cannot be wrong, cannot be told.

It is apparent Bassett is angry with the world, possibly due to his
being a "pom", and maybe his miserable failure as a human forces his
alter-ego of a dog.

Proceed Mr. Turner, your technical writing certainly has a place here,
unlike the rantings of a confused canine.


I,m lost for words,, total lost.
and I might well be all **** and wind, but I'm big enough to sit you
on your arse.

bassett

Bluster, bluster !

Beaten senseless by a few words the dogman wants to bite !

Total lost is correct...whatever that means.

Get in your box internet bully boy dog thing.

Well there you go, looks like I got you to bite,,, It's really
not that hard.

As for your first pathetic post, you remember the one, where you
went of in an uncontrollable rant, about my short comings,

The point was, thousands and thousands of these kits have been sold
world wide, to just ordinary people without any formal training, Bit
like Mr Turner, and no doubt yourself. And the surprising thing is
they all got the things to work.
I know of three people who bought them, and surprise, surprise,
there all working quite well.

Basset, not one of the thousands you say have built these kits have come
forward to
describe their experiences with ER Audio ESL kits, except Colin Topps,
the UK rep, who tried to protect his income from selling kits by lying
to me about
the kits.

How the **** would you know how many ppl have bought these kits?

How would anyone know?

A search on Google revealed an extremely small amount of information
outside what is at the ERA website.

I suspect that you are lying to try to give credence to your
foolish position which the UK sales rep Colin Topps was so eager to
maintain, ie, that the
kits were fabulous, went together easily, and were in effect as good as
Quad ESL57 at least,
and perhaps on par with ESL63.

When I challenged Colin, and refused to accept his BS, he got offended
that
I distrusted his words, and he did did not and could not supply any
names of anyone who had
built fine samples of the ESL speakers.

I don't think many ppl have completed the ESL speakers successfully and
compared them with Quad speakers, done any measurements, or any
constructive
critique, and sure these speakers work in the legal sense they do
produce music
when signal is applied, but the general performance when compared to
ESL67 and ESL63 is quite attrocious.



But you come along and run your mouth to defend the undefendable , The
highly self taught experts, who was completely stuffed with the consept
of joining part "A" to part "B" and so on.. He and his little
friend Jute, another self confessed expert with no formal training , go
on about measurements, which don't really mean ****, when you consider
it's a kit with all the components, which have been tested over time, and
are known to give a good result, regardless of being tested, So really
it's a pointless exercise, when the results have no connection with the
end result of a kit. or to put in terms your limited intellect will
understand. If the things are put together correctly, they will give the
result, there intended to give.


Unfortunately, Basset hasn't built one of these kits.

So what the **** does Basset know???????

He knows how to act like a dog, that's about all.

He takes the side of ER Audio without ever having built
a sample of their kits.



As for me claiming to read a lot on the internet, nothing could be
further from the truth, but that's just you once again running your
big mouth.


Its obvious you don't know much Basset, because you don't read much
anywhere, and don't do much
anytime.

So you'll have to get used us showing you total disrespect until you
proove you are worthy of the slightest respect.

Patrick Turner.



So I suggest you run along and help defend the undefinable, as the
Dynamic duo need all the help they can get, Off you go.

bassett

[bassett[_2_]]

"Patrick Turner" wrote in message
...
Basset, you are a true ****wit.

Takes one to know one Blossum
I could report you for using that sort of language. bad mother Turner

The act of posting to a public news group

IS THE ACTION OF INVITING REPLIES FROM ANYONE OUT THERE.

And that includes me ,

So its no use getting upset when someone you don't like replies to your
posts.

That's a bit like calling the kettle black, unlike you, I don't get
upset,

I don't like you. Everyone else thinks you are jerk;
One said you have a serious mental problem because you
identify yourself as a dog, rather than a man, and you posted a picture
of your home, a doghouse to r.a.t, even though images are not allowed at
the news groups.

Everyone's entitled to think what they like, It worries me not, and
you sunshine worry me even less.
As for posting pictures, that's your problem you cross posted your
little sad saga in the first place. I just resiprecatted. . But who
made you the moderator, I'll post whatever I like whan I like, and how I
like, and you sunshine can go **** yourself into shape.
How would you like me to fill up both groups with Porn, everyday.
Such things can be arranged. So mind your own business.. You control
nothing..

So think twice before you post more rubbish to us.

Patrick [mother] Turner.

Don't tell me what to do, who the **** do you think you are, and who
do you think your talking to, you have no more control over newsgroups
then anyone else.
You really are a sanctimonious little grub, I'll be down your way in a
couple of weeks, I might pop round round for afternoon tea NOT .
Now run along and play with your bits of wire.
Lov bassett

[bassett[_2_]]

Don't worry about any of this crap, Mother Turners just looking for
attention and cross posting his little dilemma's , Poor lov.

The trouble is has no life and just goes from saga to long drawn out
saga. the blokes a bloody drama queen, and needs treatment.

bassett

[Fun Tyme]

bassett wrote:
"Fun Tyme" wrote in message
...
bassett wrote:
"Fun Tyme" wrote in message

Bassett gets upset when any technical information is posted
This is due to his unfortunate position of extreme ignorance and lack of
electronic and technical skills. He cannot understand anything technical
and in his anguish posts utter rubbish in an effort to denigrate anyone
who does possess skills and knowledge.....childish !

Bassett claims to read much on the internet, but reading and
comprehension are two distinct functions. Any reasonable person would
expect to learn spelling and grammar by simple association, in the
Bassett case (Basket case ?!), this is not apparent in any measure.

The man is full of **** and wind, and a fool no less, resorts to foul
language when cornered, cannot be wrong, cannot be told.

It is apparent Bassett is angry with the world, possibly due to his
being a "pom", and maybe his miserable failure as a human forces his
alter-ego of a dog.

Proceed Mr. Turner, your technical writing certainly has a place here,
unlike the rantings of a confused canine.

I,m lost for words,, total lost.
and I might well be all **** and wind, but I'm big enough to sit you
on your arse.

bassett

Bluster, bluster !

Beaten senseless by a few words the dogman wants to bite !

Total lost is correct...whatever that means.

Get in your box internet bully boy dog thing.

Well there you go, looks like I got you to bite,,, It's really
not that hard.

As for your first pathetic post, you remember the one, where you
went of in an uncontrollable rant, about my short comings,

The point was, thousands and thousands of these kits have been sold
world wide, to just ordinary people without any formal training, Bit
like Mr Turner, and no doubt yourself. And the surprising thing is
they all got the things to work.
I know of three people who bought them, and surprise, surprise,
there all working quite well.

But you come along and run your mouth to defend the undefendable , The
highly self taught experts, who was completely stuffed with the consept
of joining part "A" to part "B" and so on.. He and his little
friend Jute, another self confessed expert with no formal training , go
on about measurements, which don't really mean ****, when you consider
it's a kit with all the components, which have been tested over time, and
are known to give a good result, regardless of being tested, So really
it's a pointless exercise, when the results have no connection with the
end result of a kit. or to put in terms your limited intellect will
understand. If the things are put together correctly, they will give the
result, there intended to give.

As for me claiming to read a lot on the internet, nothing could be
further from the truth, but that's just you once again running your
big mouth.

So I suggest you run along and help defend the undefinable, as the
Dynamic duo need all the help they can get, Off you go.

bassett


YOU are the undefinable (sic)....YOUR consept (sic).

An expert in limited intellect be ye, an embarrassment to your species.

[bassett[_2_]]

"flipper" wrote in message
Doesn't have anything to do with someone trying to be 'moderator'.
These are not binary groups and attempting to post binaries to them is
inappropriate.


Tell mother turner, he's the one who started the cross posting.

As for whats appropriate. There are no rules on usenet, you can
do as you like.
bassett

[Andre Jute]

bassett wrote:
"Andre Jute" wrote in message
oups.com...
bassett wrote:
I'm not about to bandy words

But you do, 1058 of them according to the word counter in Microsoft
Word.

We knocked up a set of those things in a weekend.

That's great! Publish your measurements of the completed electrostats
so we can compare them with Patrick's measurements and decide if you
did the job right or just botched it faster than usual.

Your complete post is below in all its illiterate glory.

Andre Jute
No one invited you into the debate, Cum Stain,, so **** off

So, while you bluster, Dogface, what should we conclude:

1. That you lied about building a set of the ERA ESL-IIIB speakers?

2. That you built them but don't know how to take measurements?

3. That you have cloth ears and can't hear that they sound like ****?

Andre Jute
No real corpses were harmed in the assembly of my golem Worthless
Wieckless -- CE Statement of Conformity

[Andre Jute]

bassett wrote: to "Fun Tyme":

But you come along and run your mouth to defend the undefendable , The
highly self taught experts, who was completely stuffed with the consept
of joining part "A" to part "B" and so on.. He [Parick Turner] and his little
friend Jute, another self confessed expert with no formal training ,

If you know so much more than we do, Dogface, now is your chance to
prove us wrong by argument rather than abuse.

go
on about measurements, which don't really mean ****,

That's true when both these conditions are first true:
a) that we are speaking about some known-good product from a known-
good maker (not a novelty from some unknown maker)
AND
b) that the respondent offering an unmeasured opinion is a known-good
judge with the respect of the community (which on electrostats on RAT
means Allison, Turner and Jute, not some anonymous dogface who can't
even spell)

when you consider
it's a kit with all the components, which have been tested over time, and
are known to give a good result, regardless of being tested, So really
it's a pointless exercise, when the results have no connection with the
end result of a kit. or to put in terms your limited intellect will
understand. If the things are put together correctly, they will give the
result, there intended to give.

In plain English, what you just said, "bassett", is that the ERA ESL-
IIIB is designed to give a poor result and does give a poor result. Is
that what you intended to say, Dogface? (I'm doing you a favour and
ignoring some other ludicrous inconsistencies in the paragraph above,
and just concentrating on trying to find out if you are really as
stupid as you sound.)

the
Dynamic duo [Turner and Jute] need all the help they can get

Of course we need all the help we can get. That's because we're not
thick enough, as you are, to believe we know everything worth knowing.
That is why Patrick approached the EERA representative who, probably
not knowing the answers, tried to blow smoke over him, with
predictable results.

Note that I have never heard or even seen the ERA ESL-IIIB, nor ever
visited the maker's netsite. But I have considerable experience with
Quad electrostats, and with trying to make a cheaper electrostats, so
that I broadly know what is possible and what is not.

Clearly, if ERA do not set their sights too high and say so, "bassett"
is right: the ERA delivers as promised, and isn't much chop except for
those with low standards. If Patrick has reported correctly that ERA
claim results at the Quad level, then I would on the face of it
already doubt the possibility simply on the grounds of the reported
numbers relating to their transformer (same problem Patrick has with
the ERA speaker, that the laws of physics are not only immutable but
are never at the service of marketeers; the competence of the
transformer design for an electrostat makes or breaks or the finished
article). I further note that everyone accepts Patrick's measurements
as near enough correct; I do too.

Of course, just to troll these murky waters for those with a sense of
humour, viewed laterally, the less than pleasing results Patrick
measured proves "bassett's" point, that Patrick is expecting too much
from a kit, that the ERA kit what it is, and delivers what it
delivers, and it is a waste of time to expect better. (Is that what
you're trying to say, Dogface?)

If that is what Dogface is trying to say, that the ERA is an
economical taste of electrostats for those who cannot afford the
purchase and upkeep of Quad electrostats (or Maggies, eh Sander?),
then the answer is that those people should instead, for a few hundred
dollars, buy from STAX their cheapest model of electrostatic
headphones for around 400USD delivered anywhere in the world. Those
with more money should buy used Quad.

I have one pair of Quad ESL63 I bought second-hand at about 10 years
old for a thousand Irish pounds or about USD1600 -- it was no rare
bargain; I bought them from the official Irish importer, comptete with
a guarantee. I've owned them another 15 years. In that time I spent
another 80 punt or 130USD, say, on parts. They're now worth about
3000USD sold locally, and more if one were willing to ship them. So
they have cost me nothing. So the question of the value of an ERA kit
is defined by a) the pleasure of achievement in building something
yourself and b) how much cheaper the ERA kit is than a used set of
Quad ESL-63 to compensate for the ERA not being anywhere near as good
as a Quad.

HTH you put your brain in gear, Dogface.

Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Amps at http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/
"wonderfully well written and reasoned information
for the tube audio constructor"
John Broskie TubeCAD & GlassWare
"an unbelievably comprehensive web site
containing vital gems of wisdom"
Stuart Perry Hi-Fi News & Record Review

[Sander deWaal]

Andre Jute said:


If that is what Dogface is trying to say, that the ERA is an
economical taste of electrostats for those who cannot afford the
purchase and upkeep of Quad electrostats (or Maggies, eh Sander?),
then the answer is that those people should instead, for a few hundred
dollars, buy from STAX their cheapest model of electrostatic
headphones for around 400USD delivered anywhere in the world. Those
with more money should buy used Quad.


While this may be too subtle for our resident moron K9, the
differences between Maggies and Quads are huge.
However, the one thing they have in common is the bipolar character,
which places some demands on placement and treatment of the room.

Second-hand Maggies are not very expensive, one can find pairs of MG1C
and even MG1.2 for about 300......600 euro overhere.

There's always a drawback.
The problem with older Maggies is that the wires come off the foil,
causing buzzing noises and in extreme cases even broken wires.
One can buy repair kits direct from Magnepan (or Twinstatic Audio if
you're in W. Europe), or cobble together something oneself from the
hardware store.
All one needs is the right gauge of aluminium wire and the right glue.

On the Magnepan Users Group website it is explained in detail how to
repair and tweak older Maggies until they're better than new:
http://www.integracoustics.com/MUG/MUG/

While this may be a slight problem, refurbishing Quads is quite a
different story.
It can be done, of course, but it's a lot harder than refurbishing
Maggies.
Second-hand Quads keep up their value just well, here in Holland a
nice pair of 63s will set you back some 1500 euro.
A refurbishment by the Quad distributor will cost about the same.


And then there are the Ueber-stats, the Apogees.
They also have their problems, but they can be repaired as well with
very good result.
However, be prepared to fork over a significant amount to obtain a
pair, e.g. Scintillas will be around 6000 euro or more if refurbished.

The main difference between Maggies and Apogees is that the latter
will not crumble under any kind of music or amplifier power, they will
make your ears bleed if necessary.

I don't need that, my 6 Maggies (5 m^2) are enough for my humble
needs.

--

- Maggies are an addiction for life. -