Sid Smith's ESL speaker

I received a call from Ijaz to go pick up a piece of equipment from Sid Smith's son in law in New Haven, CT.  Many years ago Sid built an electrostatic speaker and I was to get the wire bending machine he built to make the stators.  Below are some pictures of the machine and what it was used for.

Apparently a successor to this speaker was shown by Joe Grado at the 1968 Philadelphia Audio Show and in today's dollar it would have been a $5700.  It is unclear whether that id for a single or a pair but even at double it is still a fraction of what the market commands today.

dave

THE horn loudspeaker reference book

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their official blurb:


Bjørn Kolbrek and Thomas Dunker announce the launch of a new website on the occasion of publishing "High-Quality Horn Loudspeaker Systems". As of September 12, 2019,  www.hornspeakersystems.info should be the first stop for updated information on the book release and for background information and resources related to the book and the research behind it.


but here is what I have to tell you... this is THE book... I have seen snippets... discussed a few of the findings.. the level of research is deep and wide... the curation is incredible... and the layout is clean and easy to comprehend... yes, they are my friends, but seriously, if you care about high fidelity music reproduction, you will snag this book the instant it becomes available.. (Amazon or AES NYC)....


something like five hundred pages of history - like Bell Labs classified technical papers that have never been published... several hundred of theory - Bjorn is the king (no offense, Dunker).... and a couple hundred on application - something these Vikings are extremely good at... so yeah... a THOUSAND pages.... wanna be freaked out?  here is a link to the Table of Contents...


I already know a few of the secrets within and cannot wait to read the rest... not much building will get done this October and November... but lots of work will get done after reading... motivation!


I am proud to be their friend and very proud of them!... sincere thanks for putting in the work....


peace,
me