Question:
In anticipation of a much larger office in my new addition, I have purchased
another set of ESL 57's and am seeking input from those who have experience
running multiple pairs of these speakers, stacked or otherwise. Should I
use the same amp (Scott LK48 w/7189s) paralleled into the 8 ohm tap? Will I
need more power than 24wpc? Any other issues?
Answer:
I have had a fair bit to do with stacked Quad ESL 57s.
The load is basically 8 ohms over the mid range but plummets suddenly
from just above 5 kHz to 1 ohm at 18 kHz - so you will likely lose some
highs with a tube amp.
An ESL 57 can accept up to a 45 watt / 8ohm amplifier so two in
parallel can take twice that figure - since the current will double. I
suspect that 24 watts will not be very good - but that depends on you and
your listening room.
How do you intend to stack them ? If you use the more aesthetic
continuous curve approach be aware this creates two separate HF beams in the
room - one of them headed for the ceiling. The LFs and mids will add in
phase nicely but the HF end will be down by nearly 6 dB as a result.
EQing to fix this is possible and so is adding a ribbon tweeter a la
Mark Levinson - however simply aiming each Quad at the same spot where
your ears are when listening is the easiest solution.
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