[Audio Empire]

On Mon, 28 May 2012 09:35:45 -0700, Dick Pierce wrote
(in article ):

Audio Empire wrote:
M-L Electrostatics are push-pull and cone speakers
are single-ended. That means that harmonic distortion
in cone speakers will be much harder to control than
it is in electrostatics.

This is myth for several reasons.

I disagree. Electrostatics have the diaphragm driven from both the front and
the rear using opposite phased signals. I.E, the backplane pushes on the
diaphragm (repels it) while the front plane attracts it, and vice versa. This
makes the movement of the diaphragm more linear. In Magnaplaners (which are
magnetic "analogies" of electrostatics) the magnets are generally on one side
of the diaphragm, and one side only (there have been exceptions - the tweeter
panel in the Tympani IIIC's for instance, which had magnets on both the front
and rear of the diaphragms), and distortion is generally higher than with
electrostatics. Also, since the speaker's efficiency falls off as the
diaphragm moves away from the magnets, Maggies are subject to dynamic range
limitations. While this might all be a secondary, or even a tertiary effect,
it nonetheless can be heard. The cleanest, most distortion-free speakers I've
ever heard were a pair of Martin Logan CLXs driven by a pair of Krell solid
state monoblocks.