One of the perennial dreams of audio designers is to combine the dynamic punch and extension of box speakers with the purity and clarity of box-less electrostatics within the higher frequencies. Hybrid speakers with box woofer plus electrostatic mid-tweeter appear regularly and have for many years. (One of the popular audiophile do-it-yourself projects of the Fifties was to come up with the Jantzen electrostatic tweeter with various box bottom ends; some of the resulting speakers were exceptional for their some time and would have their points even today). But with rare exceptions, those designs past and provides never have really jelled. Sooner or later the ear latches onto the discontinuity between your box woofer as well as the electrostatic, and it stays latched on. Once heard, the discontinuity becomes increasingly annoying and that is no more that speaker. Like college boys inside the old song, hybrids appear and disappear but mostly go.

The InnerSound Eros is yet another try. And by George, this one works! The Eros really does solve the integration problem. To my ears, it's as coherent as speakers with two dynamic drivers, and even more coherent than a lot of them. The result is a speaker with extraordinary virtues and few failings. It is smooth, sweet-sounding, clean, and pure, with superb stereo imaging performance. This is a hybrid that wont degrade its welcome.

innersound isis

Like a magic show, the Eros calls the question: How's it done? Part with the fact is just the alert and careful experimentation the design involved. Roger Sanders, the designer, can be a well-known expert on electrostatics. (He literally wrote the book about them he will be the author of your standard reference work about electrostatics). And he's been at work about this design for a long period. But there's two explicitly describable things within the design that separate the Eros from other, less successful hybrids. First the box woofer, which is a transmission line design, is quite clean, precise, and nonresonant. I'll be darned if I'll call a woofer fast since that is not what a woofer could be, but when it weren't the incorrect word, it would be the proper word for this one. Second, the crossover from box to electrostat is more than usual, around 450 Hz, and has steep slopes (24 dB/octave).

Traditionally, individuals have attemptedto run their electrostatic elements down as low as possible, to try and make because the sound electrostatic as you can. The trouble is made that first move at say 150 Hz, a dipole electrostatic element is interacting with the space way differently from the about omni box-woofer. This discontinuity of radiation pattern is practically certain to be audible. In the Eros, the crossover point is high enough the dipole's room interaction, and particularly its differentiation against room modes, is not because of this different (room modes are really closely spaced by 500 Hz). Also, the electrostatic element doesn't have to use up to now into the region where dipole cancellation turns into a serious problem. So the woofer may be rolled off steeply, as it doesn't need to help out the electrostat over the crossover point. Anyway, those are my guesses as to why it functions. But the true point is, it will.

innersound isis

Somehow when dipole operation just isn't so important above 500 Hz, then why bother with the electrostatic thing in any way? Why not only use dynamic drivers at the top too? The electrostat has other advantages, however. First of most, it's got small distortion. It is hard to obtain anything such as this clean a sound from a box mid/tweeter.

The 2nd point might be a more techno, nevertheless it counts for plenty. The electrostatic take into account the Eros is forty inches high. This implies that from say 1 kHz on up, the speaker is beamy in the vertical direction. There aren't any reflections off the floor or ceiling inside the higher frequencies. And with regards to that, because dipoles don't radiate sideways, you can get eliminate the initial sidewall reflection too, in the event you set the speakers up right. The first reflected highs you hear arrive with regards to a week after the direct sound. The result's that the Eros sounds so clear you almost can't believe it.

I listened firstly course, however couldn't resist a little impulse response test. Result: pulse in, first arrival, then nothing inside the high frequencies for 15 milliseconds. Pretty amazing. No wonder the Eros sounds clear and in addition offers extraordinary insight into the acoustic environment from the recording. You aren't hearing your listening room for a long time, and never most of after that it.

The Eros is a biamplified system. But the purchase price includes a built-in amplifier for your woofer units, along with the necessary electronic crossover. You supply the amplifier for the electrostatic upper frequencies. The beauty of this arrangement isn't that a great deal power is needed from 500 Hz on up. (It is bass that eats power). I wouldn't recommend a microwatt SET, but you will get big volume music from the medium power amplifier on the top here. You do need an amplifier though that will not mind the fact the burden is capacitive, and right down to 2? at 20 kHz. (Some amps will go in to a tizzy, and present a rising, ringing top). If you need to, you can even use another amplifier of your personal for that bass the electronic crossover has outputs to the but I can't see why you need to.

The degree of the woofer can be adjusted so that you can accommodate amplifiers of varied gains easily. You should not use the control being a bass level adjuster as such, however. There will be just a narrow array of levels at which the woofer and electrostat blend to offer a and uncolored midrange. Find that level and leave the control there. (In order to boom your bass occasionally, obtain a tone control).

Just how does the Eros really sound? The bass is clean, precise, and reasonably extended. It won't drop by earthquake or 32' organ stop territory, but there is ample extension for orchestral music to have its foundation. And the bass is extremely smooth and non-resonant. The midrange is also smooth, largely uncolored, and well-integrated. There is a touch height sensitivity from the interaction between your woofer as well as the electrostatic element, but at usual seating heights and usual distances, all is well. In my room, if the bass level was set to produce the smoothest transition from woofer to electrostat also to give the lowest coloration of the mids, the midbass and bass were slightly down in level. There is another little relaxation in the presence region, so the overall sound was slightly midrangy. (Within the high treble, the amount returns up some). This balance flatters plenty of material (e.g., a person's voice), and in addition it appears to be the type of balance that recording engineers anticipate. Monitor flat (which is seldom delivered by monitors!) generally seems to make most material sound too aggressive. In any case, it's hard to imagine anyone finding the Eros balance not attractive. And as noted, the sound posseses an almost magical clarity, along with a clarity not at all purchased at the price of exaggerated presence just the opposite in terms of tonal balance. The speaker is merely clear of course, intrinsically clear.

Now we arrive at a unique feature of the Eros. It is not a problem exactly, In fact, I consider it an advantage. But you do have to know about it. The thing is, the Eros speakers are beamy within the high frequencies, not just vertically as I already mentioned, but horizontally, too. When you take a seat to listen, you had better be able to see yourself reflected within the electrostatic diaphragms speakers pointed right at you or say so long for the high frequencies. This beaminess actually offers a kind of precision and solidity of stereo image that you will never get if the speakers are flipping high frequencies all over the room. And it is possible to play with it a bit to have a few of the time/intensity tradeoff stability of the Ohm 300s I talked about a few issues back. (Some although not everything the Ohms are essentially unique there). But the beaminess could be different from what you're utilized to plus it usually takes a bit getting accustomed to it. The beaminess includes that only 1 listener will hear the ideal imaging and tonal balance, although the rolled-off highs on the edges usually are not disagreeable. One could of course setup the Eros audiophile style inside the negative a feeling of pointing them lower the room with a lot of backwall reflection, more sidewall reflection, blurry spacious soundstage, etc. But I wouldn't, and yo certainly won't get much top quality should you choose. This is really a subject on which there seems to be some confusion. The truth is that stereo is predicated about the first arrival dominating the picture. Reflections, later arrivals, just blur the imaging and don't really contribute genuine stereo information, although one might in some manner benefit from the resulting spaciousness. The Eros is among the best imaging speakers around, but it is the purist picture, direct arrivals emphasized. It doesn't generate space when a recording doesn't have any; it enables you to hear the phasiness of spaced microphone sound when the microphones are spaced, and so forth. What will there be is what you receive.

Will, with one exception: Depending around the material, certain sounds can seem to be to come in the electrostatic panel itself a little more than really need to happen. With images between your speakers and needless to say, theoretically which is in which the images ought to be this does not occur. But when one listens to those spacey recordings that fling images outside the speakers, the photographs can pop forward to the panels a little. It is difficult at fault the speaker for your exactly, since such recordings are problematical by nature. But in your auditioning, you should listen because of this with regards to whether or not the Eros with their theoretically almost perfect imaging present your preferred recordings in a way too distinctive from what you really are familiar with.