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Don't know much about ...

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Posted on August 19, 2010 at 09:28:37
gentlegiantfan
Audiophile

Posts: 1004
Location: central florida
Joined: November 25, 2002
... electro-stats.

A pair of KLH model 9 speakers has come up for sale locally. The guy that has them doesn't know audio and doesn't even know if they work. He doesn't even have any gear to hook up to 'em to see if they do work.

From hanging here for the last several years, I know enough to be dangerous. I know they could be anywhere from about 30-40+/- years old. I know about panel arcing and letting the panels charge up. Assuming they do work, what's a reasonable fair market value? if they don't, how big a money-pit / nightmare can they turn into?

Perhaps more directly, figuring they *will* have issues, are they something that a guy like me with limited knowledge and DIY skills should even mess with at all? Oh, I do know enough to completely discharge them before poking around inside! :)

Thanks

 

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RE: Don't know much about ..., posted on August 19, 2010 at 15:30:35
kentaja
Manufacturer

Posts: 4610
Joined: March 26, 2001
They are broken. A nightmare to restore. Very expensive to rebuild. Not a DIY sort of project.

Not worth much in their current condition. Perhaps a few hundred dollars. Unless you want a neat piece of non-working audio history hanging about the house probably best to pass.

Sorry for not having better news. There is no such thing as a 'deal' on older electrostats. They either work great and are priced accordingly, or they are in need of a lot of expensive work.

 

RE: Don't know much about ..., posted on August 19, 2010 at 15:52:28
josh358
Industry Professional

Posts: 12327
Joined: February 9, 2010
They might work, I have a friend who's still using his. The only way to know whether they're still in good shape is to try them.

 

RE: Don't know much about ..., posted on August 19, 2010 at 17:28:05
George S. Roland
Audiophile

Posts: 1464
Location: N W Pennsylvania
Joined: March 20, 2004
If they're available locally, why not ask the seller if you may bring over some equipment to connect to them to see if they work? If they don't work, you're out just some time and the seller knows they don't work.

If they do work, you'll be able to listen to them a bit and see at least something of what their reputation is based upon, remembering, of course, that they are probably a pale reflection of what they once were.

I'm just weird enough to think that if they do work, you could offer a very small amount, cart them home and enjoy them for awhile, then consign them to the dumpster when you're done with them. Consider it entertainment money, like money you'd put in a slot at Vegas just for fun...no more than you can afford to lose, of course.

Or your could put that money in the bank for a pair of Quads, MLs or Maggies.

Enjoy your music,

George

 

RE: Don't know much about ..., posted on August 19, 2010 at 19:49:18
josh358
Industry Professional

Posts: 12327
Joined: February 9, 2010
This review does an excellent job of describing the sound of the 9's:

http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/666klh/

Holt refers to the two main negatives -- limited bass response when not used in the stacked configuration, and high frequency beaming. But these were world class speakers. I have a friend who still uses his.

 

unless they are Acoustats Kent......., posted on January 16, 2017 at 17:10:22
Mendel
Audiophile

Posts: 1207
Location: GTA
Joined: January 17, 2009
I paid $1000 Canadian (about $700 US) for a pair or Spectra 22 and about $650 Canadian for a local tech (Dan Santoni) to renovate the interfaces. So just over $1000 US for a set of full range electrostats and getting the best sound I have ever had in my room. That's a deal!
I probably overpaid, there is a pair of Spectra 22 on Audiogon for $450 US! (Somebody grab those already!)
They key of course is that Acoustat panels are much more robust than most other brands. Not sure about KLH panels.

 

RE: Don't know much about ..., posted on January 16, 2017 at 19:25:15
6bq5
Audiophile

Posts: 4363
Location: SF Bay
Joined: August 16, 2001
working '9s can go from a few hundred dollars to a couple of thousand-
the suggestion to bring an amp and source to listen to them is the best path-
if you want to negotiate a conditional purchase- if they work, i am willing to pay $
That could work -
He may well be willing to negotiate-
They are exceptional speakers- they will NEVER have great BASS - a function of design decisions-

Happy Listening

 

RE: Don't know much about ..., posted on January 16, 2017 at 21:40:26
russ69
Audiophile

Posts: 951
Joined: December 13, 2009
"and doesn't even know if they work"

They don't work and if they did, they may not work for long. Be careful with you amp, it could also take that out.

 

RE: Don't know much about ..., posted on January 17, 2017 at 11:40:35
Satie
Audiophile

Posts: 5426
Joined: July 6, 2002
Reading the review it is obvious that JGH was awed by the performance of the KLH 9 - his sense of euphoric wonder goes through the entire piece. Bring me back to ca. 1980 and my first encounter with a ML CLS.

 

RE: unless they are Acoustats Kent......., posted on February 6, 2017 at 23:36:21
bald2
Audiophile

Posts: 338
Location: Oregon
Joined: January 21, 2006
Well, I grabbed those Spectra 22s for $450. They are outstanding with my modded Quicksilver 8417 amps and matching 6922 line stage preamp:)

Harry Z

 

RE: unless they are Acoustats Kent......., posted on February 7, 2017 at 06:31:06
Mendel
Audiophile

Posts: 1207
Location: GTA
Joined: January 17, 2009
Congrats Harry!
That's an awesome bargain. They are very tube friendly speakers.
When you are ready to take them to the next level, consider having the interfaces rebuilt. There is only about 25 parts in each one, just have your tech upgrade each part with an upgraded modern equivalent. Get rid of the old Monster cable and replace with the cable of your choice. Upgrade the power cables and use 3 prong grounded plugs. Make sure the bias voltage is equal in both speakers and I recommend the bias voltage be increased to 6KV on each speaker. This really increases the performance! Roll down the old socks and replace with spandex or run them naked.
Feel free to PM me if you want to further discuss. Happy listening!

 

RE: Don't know much about ..., posted on February 7, 2017 at 20:58:52
josh358
Industry Professional

Posts: 12327
Joined: February 9, 2010
My friend's 9's were my first experience with high end audio, if you don't count the poorly set up ESL-57's I heard when I was in grade school. And they were a revelation to me. I had a pair of AR-11's at the time, of which I was very proud. But to say that the 9's were in a different universe would be understatement. Not only did they have electrostatic detail, but it was the first time I'd heard speakers that could reproduce depth. I bought my 1-D's not long afterwards.

 

RE: Don't know much about ..., posted on February 8, 2017 at 10:00:20
Satie
Audiophile

Posts: 5426
Joined: July 6, 2002
My first exposure to ESLs was the Quad 57 at my music teacher's when high school aged. But my expectations of spatial performance were first set by my uncle's Allison cube speakers firing at the sidewalls years earlier. My first large ESL panel exposure was the CLS. Never saw the KLH 9 . But if your experience was anything like mine then yes, it was a totally transformative experience. It was the first time I heard a speaker produce lifelike images and dimensionality in 3D and incredible detail. It was like being there at the live performance.
Nothing else I heard till then came close and it was not till I heard big Apogees that I found something close (no cigar though) in performance. Then I got the Neo8 put in so I heard a tiny step closer to ESL level performance but with no dynamic limitation.

 

RE: Don't know much about ..., posted on February 8, 2017 at 11:10:33
josh358
Industry Professional

Posts: 12327
Joined: February 9, 2010
You're getting me thinking now again about a speaker that really does everything right -- clean dynamics of a horn; clarity of an electrostat; imaging, midbass, and power response of a line source planar; low bass of an OB dynamic and bottom octave slam of a sealed dynamic.

I don't see any real barrier to it, as it's a pretty straightforward application of existing technology. Expensive, to be sure, but so are high-end dynamics like the big Wilsons. I think the main challenge would be to get the disparate drivers to sound of a piece, despite their differing sonic characteristics.

 

RE: Don't know much about ..., posted on February 8, 2017 at 12:33:17
Satie
Audiophile

Posts: 5426
Joined: July 6, 2002
Well, that was my imaginary perfect speaker. But making a realistically priced one is not easy. Those that succeed in part are colossally large and expensive. Like the IRS and the Martin Logan Statement or Wisdom on walls with their line source mids and tweeters and interesting bass designs, or the big Focals and Wilsons that sacrifice the ESL's and magnetostat top end clarity for dynamic performance of domes and cones, The house range price tag is a bit much.

Even our Neo8 substitution projects are not easy to produce commercially. The cost of the raw Tympani bass and tweeters with the minimal 6 Neo8 per side adds up to $1800-1900 + Tympani bass. Or OB or W or .H frame dual 12". Add the typical cost multiple arriving at the dealers' you get $10 grand before you add the woofer sections.

So far, though I have no idea how well they do in coming close to this ideal, the GT Audio model 3 seems to have taken the right approach. The spec is impressive and is competitive with an Acoustat 6600 that has been tweaked. The just under $10K without the woofer section makes it the most promising choice available commercially.

 

RE: Don't know much about ..., posted on February 8, 2017 at 15:57:09
josh358
Industry Professional

Posts: 12327
Joined: February 9, 2010
You know, last night I was playing a recording a Beethoven trio that I hadn't listened to in ages and I suddenly said to myself "that's weird -- why is the cello coming from near the floor while the violin is coming from higher up?" And then realized that it's because the cello *was* near the floor, duh. It was a reminder that some things can only be done with a full length line source, including the recreation of height from floor bounce cues.

It seems to me that the technology for making a true super speaker is sorely constrained. It has to be a line source -- point sources can image well, but not as well as a line. And only electrostatics have the kind of purity necessary (since line source plasmas aren't practical). Maybe very esoteric true pistonic dynamics but they'd cost a fortune and would lack sufficient high end dispersion. And to get that 120 dB + clean SPL from a stat, you'd need a lot of surface area, which means you have to use a delay since uniform polar pattern can't be achieved in a limited dispersion speaker and even coaxial crossover designs aren't quite right. You also have to limit the frequency range.

The good news is that such a stat wouldn't be super costly because it wouldn't go all the way into the bass. That's where you use your planar panels and dynamic woofer folded dipole arrays. And once you get a large enough woofer array, you're inevitably in megabucks territory. It's more like an IRS V or the GT Audio with the woofer towers. You could actually get the SPL you want from one or two drivers but not I think with quality that would complement the mids and highs. So it's the bass that's the real killer from the perspective of finances and size.

Of course, in practice, it might not matter that much -- if you can reproduce tympani and bass notes on a piano realistically, you're pretty much covered, and the panels on the IVA's do an amazing job of that. Then you can use a big sealed sub for the bottom octave -- you're only going to be using it for organ notes, explosions, and ambiance anyway . . .

 

RE: Don't know much about ..., posted on February 9, 2017 at 11:55:11
Satie
Audiophile

Posts: 5426
Joined: July 6, 2002
The height cue capture by tall line sources is fairly unique. It is often a jaw dropper for dynamic speaker owners. My caveat with the ML hybrids, among others, is that the height cues are not quite there to the same extent so the height dimension is a bit squished to the bottom on the slanted models and a bit exaggerated on the vertical ones with bass always coming off too low.. Contrabass comes off too low. Those should play at floor to top of the soundstage just under the violins and flutes.

That brings us back to the ML CLS or Soundlab A1 or tall acoustat coupled with a Tympani or an IRS woofer tower as HP experimented with. That model goes with the GT Audio 3 as well. It is $15k to $20k with the woofer sections and should max out in the over 115 db output range, if not quite to 120 db. That makes it a bargain if it truly does it. The current version of the IRS in the Genesis I is still a $200k setup. And I don't think the modified BG drivers can actually match the performance of the old EMIMs nor that of the more modern Neo8.

With the power of the Crown behind it I can tune the LP to provide a progressive rise to 25 hz with a lower Q filter on the T IV bass. Comes off very impressive but a bit of a pain on rumble and cutting lathe noise on LP. Anyway, I dropped the idea of a sub because it did cover the bottom octave quite well. It did not do the explosive bass that only dynamics can do, but it die provide ample bass output even without wall loading.

To compare panels to dynamic woofer towers we can look at the old "classic's" specs. The IRS went to 16 hz on the spec, The ML Monolith bottomed out at 28hz, as did the T IV (at least officially) The RS1B was more appropriate for comparison as it was on the same plane in price range as the others. It went down to 25 hz. The Acoustat 6/Spectra 6600 did 26hz and the Apogee full range was rated to 30hz. The somewhat unreal sized Acoustat 8/Spectra 8800 was rated down to 24 hz . The Soundlab A1 was rated to 25 hz and cost double that of the T IV and more than the Acoustat 8.

None of these covered the bottom octave as well as a bipolar 12" sealed sub can do. But for the IRS..

 

RE: Don't know much about ..., posted on February 10, 2017 at 10:15:18
josh358
Industry Professional

Posts: 12327
Joined: February 9, 2010
"That brings us back to the ML CLS or Soundlab A1 or tall acoustat coupled with a Tympani or an IRS woofer tower as HP experimented with. That model goes with the GT Audio 3 as well. It is $15k to $20k with the woofer sections and should max out in the over 115 db output range, if not quite to 120 db. That makes it a bargain if it truly does it. The current version of the IRS in the Genesis I is still a $200k setup. And I don't think the modified BG drivers can actually match the performance of the old EMIMs nor that of the more modern Neo8."

It's true. The cost of the Genesis I is disproportionate. I don't know how good the GT Audio 3 is -- it looks good on paper but there's a lot more to speaker design than the components. But we know what it cost to make a good electrostatic or planar tower as well as OB woofer towers and you should be able to sell something comparable or better for less than that. (For this kind of money, I'd probably add a sealed woofer for bottom octave slam -- even full-height OB towers may bottom out at high levels.)

I'm not sure if dynamic bass slam is realistic. For explosions, maybe, but drums don't pressurize a room (0th mode), they're dipoles. But if you want to do 16 Hz pedal notes or explosions, I think you're right -- you have to go with a sealed dynamic (or a rotary woofer). Which doesn't actually cost that much, in fact I think it's a better cost trade, e.g., you get good, undistorted midbass from the Tympani panels or OB dynamics and then you get the bottom octave from a pair of sealed subs. The cost of an IRS-style bass tower is unnecessarily high and the quality won't match that of an OB line since you have enclosure coloration and excite more room modes.

 

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