Right, not a review but initial thoughts.
Having got them back to my place the night before I wheeled these into the lounge and hooked them up to the Amcron STA2, set up a CD and left them to chunter away playing a bit of light dinner jazz for 20 minutes as suggested by Martin. Well, the 20 minutes of light dinner jazz wasn't Martin's idea. It wasn't what I played either, but it was inoffensive enough and just intended to warm them up if they were feeling unloved.
Placement isn't straightforward, they need to be against a wall or maybe even a corner but they are very deep. They are now either side of a fireplace, in fact one is on the hearth. Both are backed up to the wall.
The first disc into the machine was Bruce Springsteen, Born in the USA. Not his finest hour but "Downbound Train" is a great track. Yeah, I know, cars and girls, but he does it well. The Frugalhorns sounded great, the bass reproduction is that they reproduce the frequencies but without the "bump-thump" of conventional speakers. The voices are very forward indeed, the rest of the band less so. It reminds me very much of electrostatics in that regard, in that the bass rolls out but has no slam to it. This is not resolved by turning it up, as you increase the volume you just get more of everything until it starts to sound a little blurred and confused. Not an ideal speaker for a teenegers' party then.
I changed discs to something a bit different, more downbeat in general. More Springsteen (sorry), but now in contemplative mode, on the soundtrack of Dead Man Walking. No drums here, no amplified guitars, just an acoustic guitar and close-miked voice. Wow. This was more like it. The voice was alive and in the room, the lack of bass slam wasn't a problem. 2nd track is Johnny Cash, more of the same. His gravelly vocals just spring forward, like the ESLs they do just bring the singer into the room. The same goes for the whole album, there's some Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, with and without Eddie Vedder, and he brings a band playing acoustic stringed instruments, all of which just sound as if they are in the room.
OK, let's be silly. ACDC. Well, I tried. I won't bother again. Heavily processed and amplified music just doesn't work here. They have a single pair of small drivers. If you want to reproduce drums, get a 12" or 15" driver.
Next was an amplifier change. I was aware of the 200+ wpc of the Amcron, and I know that like a throttle it works in both directions, but horns have never been power monsters. I have a TPA 3116 based chip amp, probably about 30 wpc RMS. Here goes. The results were much the same as with the Amcron. I must say that if you don't have the real estate for the Amcron then this little grey fag packet is well worth a try. I know some people can't get on with Class D, maybe they can hear something I can't, but I found it very pleasant. It's an amp that adds no colour of its own, it's very neutral. Again with the louder passages with amplified instruments it sounded a little confused, whether this was because it was beginning to clip a little or the power supply drooping I couldn't tell. However it was encouraging that the Amcron did the same, and for that to be driven into clipping you'd need PA speakers and me over the back of the sofa with my ears bleeding.
That's all for now. I haven't yet tried them with valves, and I compared them briefly to some Monitor Audio 2-ways to discover that the MA's had the voices pushed further back into the mix, less detail, but more slam, if that's your thing. The MA's offer a much more traditional presentation, as you'd expect with a decent small speaker. There is little true bass, but lots of slam that gives the impression of bass.
No comparison yet with the 4x ESL 57s. However the ESLs do take up half the room and were you to buy new they would cost as much as a small car, so let's be realistic. If they weren't sensational they wouldn't have been dominating my lounge for 8 years. I might be eccentric but I'm not mad enough to have something so ugly for so long unless it does something special.
More later, bedtime.