tube amps and electrostatics

12-04-13: Frogman
OK, George, you win; clearly, I don't know what live music sounds like.

Hopefully Frogman won't mind if I provide some perspective on his comment by stating what he is too modest to say, that he is an accomplished professional musician in the classical, jazz, and other genres.

Regards,
-- Al

Just the Quad ESL57 impedance curve, my ML's and Acousats are even worse when I measured their impedances.
http://www.quadesl.com/quad_main.html
and add to this the highly capacitive nature of ESL's, and you can see why Roger Sander says Solid State is better than Tube or OTL Tube for ESL's

The only tube amp which is great match and is not worried by these impedance drops is High Volatge direct drive tube amps (up to 5000v at the speaker terminals). For ESL's like the oringinal Acoustat X. But these are difficult and hard and make safe. As you can imagine.

Cheers George

There's no question that when driving the many ESL's that have impedances descending from high values at low frequencies to very low values at upper treble frequencies nearly all solid state amps will provide an increased emphasis of the upper treble in comparison to nearly all tube amps (assuming the amps being compared are operated within the limits of their voltage, current, power, and thermal capabilities).

Which of those two kinds of amplifier/speaker interactions results in the most correct acoustic output from the speaker is a separate question, however.

Regards,
-- Al

I think Al got it right again, as usual. :-)

No he didn't he, used the word "increased emphasis" where he should have used the word "linear", as in flat in regard to frequency response.

Cheers George