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King Sound
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and no, it did not look like one!
Now GL, you've seen and heard my answer to your question, the same as suggested by jsm1. I'll stick with those.
"You can't know what the "best" is unless you have heard everything, and keep in mind that given individual tastes, there really isn't any such thing." HP
NT
and a lot cheaper in the long run...
Nice, welcome it what's wrong with us.
Not the most economical option, but a common solution.
Or you can forget gimmicks and just get a high quality ESL with high WAF and easy placement options.
I understand what you're saying and your point is valid ... and those certainly are gorgeous looking speaks. But one of the things I love about Maggies is not having to pay for cabinet-maker grade woodworking when what I'm interested in buying is great quality audio.
Then too I'm a single guy so ...
I bought these for the great audio quality. The fact that they have high WAF is just a bonus, although my wife never complained about the looks of our Maggies.
"The fact that they have high WAF is just a bonus, although my wife never complained about the looks of our Maggies."
The "looks" may be acceptable, but how about their being somewhat far into the room, e.g., ~four feet from that front wall? Perhaps this *your* room and it doesn't have to be used for anything else. My kids used to have a great time running around and hiding behind my Tympanis. I always anticipated a disaster, having speakers and/or children requiring stitches.
The fact that the JansZens don't have to be 4 feet out into the room was in fact an other consideration for buying them. They sound better than the Maggies I had and they are considerably more practical. They are smaller and only 22" off the front wall. While they use dipole ESL panels they are in sealed enclosures. They could theoretically be placed against the wall, although that is not optimal for most speakers including these.
There is one better - I remember seeing an Electrostatic speaker disguised as a lamp on ebay. The shade had a curved stator / diaphragm / stator, and base of the lamp had a woofer driver. The transformers were also in the base.
I VOID WARRANTIES
A few more...
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Neato, huh? SWMBO would never know!!Two problems - getting curved mylar diaphragm in such a radius is extremely hard to do without frequent arcing, and if someone decides to drive teh speaker without it powered up, destroy the audio step-up transformer.
OK, I will take this up as my new project. I started building one years ago, just had life get in the way....I have all parts except the curved stators (duh, its the hardest part)
I VOID WARRANTIES
Edits: 03/08/15
and it's awfully pretty! My wife likes the Guitar I speaker just fine in our living room. She put up with the previous towers, but is happier about the Guitar. No one who comes over realizes they are speakers until shown, even when playing music softly; it's too much of a disconnect to think that guitars make that kind of sound. The dipole nature of the ESL component in the neck of the Guitar speaker causes a lovely ambience for multi-room listening between our kitchen and living room. The Bass is not up to par with mid-sized floor standing speakers, but has a nature more like a HE speaker with a lot of cabinet contribution. It has a built in amp, so I run mine with a Nuforce small integrated, and stream Sonos to it; works slick for casual listening. The one caveat is the wonderfully realistic tripod stands, which aid the appearance of it's being real, are far more tipsy than a standard tower speaker and I would not recommend this speaker to those with little children or big pets which might topple it. Other than that, a wonderful reimagining of a household speaker!
The Kingsound King III electrostatic I reviewed for Dagogo.com.
The King Tower omnidirectional is the sleeper of the bunch. The omni made an appearance at a couple of shows, but the distributor, Roger DuNaier at Performance Devices, decided to only distribute the panels. The Tower had some wretched blue foam balls between cabinet sections, which I immediately removed; the sound and appearance was enhanced. What a performer! I wish the tower were available to the public in N. America, because it's nothing short of sensational. These $5K speakers with subs can be made to sound competitive with big floor standers at several tens of thousands of dollars. If these had been marketed differently, shown properly in a showcase room with good electronics, I think they would have made a huge splash, and given fits to makers of magnetic panel speakers.
The greatest impediment to advancing an audiophile system is the audiophile.
Thanks I looked at that site, it took a while to work out that the spinning guitar is actually the speaker!
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