Digital Audio with Soundstage Depth? Question for Digital Gurus

[morricab]

Although single cases are not enough to prove anything, I can refer one case where IMHO and system digital has more resolution - the well known La Folia "Harmonia Mundi" recording.

I have the original LP, the ATR LP, the HM CD and now the SACD. The digital systematically has more detail at similar loudness - the beetle's noise, water flowing noise and bells decays. And the imaging has also more detail in digital - the route of Range Rover in the mountains as it gets away is much more perceptible.

BTW, the only speaker I have owned that shows all the true inner detail and imaging capabilities of La Folia is the Quad ESL 63. Many others have more scale, more bass, more dynamics and more drama, but this point like electrostatic has unique capabilities.

Ever hear the STAX ELS-F81? To my ears it is a far more resolving speaker than even the ESL63. It is probably the most resolving speaker I have ever owned/heard. If not for it's loudness limitations and bit lightweight bass it is really a breathtakingly pure sounding speaker. Won't do large scale at all but for smaller scale music it might be the best of the best.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Ever hear the STAX ELS-F81? To my ears it is a far more resolving speaker than even the ESL63. It is probably the most resolving speaker I have ever owned/heard. If not for it's loudness limitations and bit lightweight bass it is really a breathtakingly pure sounding speaker. Won't do large scale at all but for smaller scale music it might be the best of the best.

I completely agree and that is why I bought a pair of them, back in history. However, it was those limitations that drove me to seek solutions (stereo subs and compensation for the upper bass impedance peak) and, ultimately, to sell them. Resolution, per se, was not (and is not) everything.

 

[mullard88]

Hi morricab and Kal Rubinson,

May I ask what amplifiers you have used to drive your Stax F81?

 

[microstrip]

Ever hear the STAX ELS-F81? To my ears it is a far more resolving speaker than even the ESL63. It is probably the most resolving speaker I have ever owned/heard. If not for it's loudness limitations and bit lightweight bass it is really a breathtakingly pure sounding speaker. Won't do large scale at all but for smaller scale music it might be the best of the best.

I was addressing overall resolution in normal listening conditions - not the typical "headphone type " detail resolution.

Anyway, I have no experience with the STAX ELS-F81 - but I have read good things about them and never understood why they seem to attract so little interest nowadays.

 

[morricab]

I was addressing overall resolution in normal listening conditions - not the typical "headphone type " detail resolution.

Anyway, I have no experience with the STAX ELS-F81 - but I have read good things about them and never understood why they seem to attract so little interest nowadays.

Well, they are rather rare for one thing and the other is that by now most of them probably don't work correctly anymore. The films deteriorate so that the already low sensitivity because so abyssmal that you saturate the step up transformers before getting hardly any sound out. I heard a pair like that once when I was looking into buying another pair. Mine had the panels redone and were working correctly. So far, the only electrostats that I have found that didn't seem to deteriorate are Acoustats. Audiostatics degrade, Martin Logans do, older Sound Labs did (not sure about recent panels), STAX apparently do too.

Also, as was noted above, they have limitations for full-range music. We found a good tube amp worked wonders with them in terms of not sounding thin and having some real bass. However, they are really about a 90db max kind of speaker. Maybe with an active xover and a sub you could get a bit louder with them but then you are almost certainly compromising the sound quality with the active xover...they reveal everything.