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Re: What to look for when buying a pair of ESL-57s

71.141.146.68

Posted by drquad on December 5, 2006 at 10:33:09

In Reply to: What to look for when buying a pair of ESL-57s posted by arend-jan on December 5, 2006 at 06:30:37:

I'll give you 3 points in order of difficulty:

1. The speakers need to have been plugged in for a few hours. This insures all the panels are properly charged. Move the two speakers as close to each other as possible without touching. They should be in the same plane. Then, with no amplifier hooked up, put your best ear (!) close to each grill. You should hear nothing. No pops, no ticks, no spitting, no hum—silence.

2. Connect amplification, including an fm tuner. Disable the tuner's muting & turn to interstation noise. Settle back & listen (normal volume or lower will do nicely) to each speaker—1st one than the other—using the balance control on the preamplifier. Dissimilar sensitivity & frequency response are what to listen for. Takes only a few seconds so repeat the drill several times until you get the hang of it.

3. Remove the back screen of each ESL. Look for torn dust covers (mainly bass panels) & arced spots on the backs of the treble panels. This last task takes a little practice because the dust covers are so reflective. Lift up the felt strips as far as you can & take your time looking for a tell-tale burned spot. If you think you see one (or more) but you aren't sure, the next step is to take off the front grills. It's a pain but there is really no substitute for a complete visual assessment. BTW, only t. panels arc so don't waste time trying to glean something by looking at the bass panels. After listening for hum, the b. panels are best assessed by determining whether they load down the EHT block (high voltage probe & meter required) more than they should. At this point you should also take measurements of the block itself. If you don't understand these last procedures have a qualified person comfortable around high voltages do the work. If any of this stuff isn't clear you can email me privately.

Sandro Boccara

• http://www.geocities.com/drquad@pacbell.net   (Open in New Window)

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