FWIW I agree with emailists. I really liked the SoundLabs (and have heard them sound great at multiple shows and a few times in people’s homes.) MLs never sounded great to me at the local dealer (no matter how he set them up) nor at shows. I do agree that you don’t learn anything at a show when the room sucks, but conversely if a room sounds great it’s telling.
Darrenv - If you liked the Mythos, you should find the PSBs a significant improvement. As long as you also like towers - and with your subs you should be able to hurt yourself (in a good way). No worries about having to put them WAY out into the room or breaking them, but a very different thing than stats. If you’re not focused on classical, you should be happy - not that the PSBs will not do that well. You should certainly be able to get big dynamics going.
But hang on, here - you started this thread about buying stats! ; )
I did. But since many fine folks have chimed in, I have decided maybe stats are not the best for me. Thank you all! I think maybe wait now for PSA to see how their upcoming towers fair!
Renaissance 15a will sound great it will just require you to get them set up right. And you will love them. They are next on my list for speakers
Hi Darren…I’m very new around here hope you don’t mind my jumping in. For quite sometime I have been wanting to hear PSB T3 owner review their T3s and comment on them. The Hometheater Schack’s $3000 speaker evaluation had a lot of great things to say about the T2s. The T3s being PSB’s flagship ought to be amazing !!!
The most difficult part of setting the T2s up was that given their curves, it becomes challenging to get a precise aim to the listening position for optimal placement.
PSB dealers are very distant, other showrooms as well.
While I may not be able to reach so high $$$…these are on my wish list…
Please keep us posted with updates on setup and listening impressions.
Thank you in advance,
DavidA
I set the PSB T3 is about the same position in my room as the old speakers were in. The old speakers were Def Tech Mythos ST-L which I liked alot until I heard the T3. The Mythos had a bit more low end, but it wasn’t as musical in low region. I feel the T3 was a few steps above the Mythos ST-l in every way. The Tweeter is FAR better in the T3. That being said, I only bought the T3 to hold me over until PSA comes out with their speakers. Then I’ll be selling them. So hit me up this fall if you want them.
Hi Darren I got your email…I tried to reply but got returned.
Just recently have had major expenditures house repairs. Not sure if would be in a place to take advantage of
your offer. Please keep me in mind…if for some reason my e-mail replies come back not deliverable I’ll pm you.
Thank you kindly Darren,
DavidA
I use ML CLX with stereo BF212 subs. I have them on a long 39 foot room that is 15 feet wide. They sit five feet from the wall.
My experience over the last several years has been superb given what electrostatic speakers do well, reproduce the nuances of every source from 40 Hz on up. Once you get used to stats, the loss of the parts of the source information that maked sources sound real is simply not acceptable.
Yes, some upper bass propulsion is the trade off, but it is not an all or nothing trade, they still exhibit better tonality and more than adequate punch for even rock. My DynAudo C4 signatures can out WHACK them in bass, and this is what they do well, but can’t touch them on proper source transparency. They simply do not play all that is sent to them.
Imagine is top notch and I NEVER have listened to ANY speaker outside of where it sounds best, why? A wider sweet spot is useless to me as I’ll sit where any speakers sounds it’s best. The CLX have a plenty forgiving sweet spot for solo listeners. Even the spray and pray C4 that have a far wider dispersion sound best in ONE spot.
I have not had ANY set-up problems at all. Part is the LONG room and five feet of space behind them and part is simply placing the speakers right feet apart and parallel, no toe-in. I just get on with it and listen after that.
If you want frequency uniformity across every degree of radiation in a room, but no real concise imaging, the MBL products are excellent. You can listen completely off axis and the sound great on tonality, get between them and proper stage setting and depth are not, to my ear, the best. But, they do convey superb detail and nuance.
The CLX are very different than most ML speakers, and to my ear it is still their best product. Like everyone, I try to replace my current speaker at every opportunity with something better. So far, and st any price, I’ve heard no compelling products that get it right through the mids and upper harmonics where music comes “alive”.
Don’t listen to stats or they will break your current speakers ability to convey the nuances of live music. I own the CLX after they broke the C4’s. True, the CLX are expensive but look at it this way, I stopped buying speakers!
For more of my impressions, go to their web site. My review is under rower30.
Did you ever get the 15a ? I’m a current owner of the 15a for a few months now .
I also like the Focal Sopra 3 which I will also be picking up in a couple days .
No not yet. I had some home repairs that slowed my purchases. I still love the 15A and they are on my list. I bet the Focals will sound amazing. Let me know what you think about them.
Just a little comment about planar placement
My present electrostats are in a corner,18 inches from the rear wall which is very heavily curtained
I explained this in communication with the owner of Soundlabs and he said that this placement would work well for Soundlabs
Goes against the common suggestion that electrostats need to be 3 feet into the room!
Bye the way I spent ages getting the placement perfect, then with that last half inch it all clicked into place
Hope these comments are helpful
Bruce
I have never owned a pair of electrostats, but I did have a pair of Maggie Tympani 1As, and Maggie SMGas in the den. Over the years, I have heard a lot of 'stats in stereo stores- ML, Quad, Soundlab, Accoustat, and others. I found the high end on most of them to be fatiguing after a while, along with being bass shy. Attempts to pair them with subs didn’t work out so well. As others have recommended, do a lot of listening to different speakers, and also notice how well the system is set up in the store you are listening to them is. Even tho stereo store employees tend to act like a cross between a rock star, and a college professor, few of them know how to properly set up a system, and have very limited space in the store to do so. Also keep in mind, they work on a commission, so don’t listen to them when they try to tell you what you are hearing. Trust your own ears. Make sure that big Maggies are on your list to listen to. A pair of 20.7s and a 12" servo sub would be a good choice to consider.
Just my not-so-humble opinion, worth every cent you paid for it. 
Mongo
ML’s are meant to be paired with Transparent Audio speaker cables. They aren’t harsh then.
The larger the panel, the more physical room to allow energy to dissipate or rear absorption is needed, or BOTH. It is simply an energy reflection thing plain and simple. Nothing unique about any di-pole that negates those facts. If you know the rear radiated energy, you know how much scattering (not as good for imaging) or absorption (better for imaging) will be needed.
My CLX are different speakers near or far from the rear wall. I enjoy better imaging so I move them 5 feet from the rear wall.
Speakers aren’t made straight-up to work with a cable outside of a speaker being more resistive sure helps! This removes the cable from the network more than if the speaker and cable, both, are highly reactive.
RF cables use a pure resistor as a load even though at RF a cable’s impedance is SQRT (L/C). The cable is reactive but the load isn’t. The larger part of the cable’s REAL vector to the IMAGINARY vector allows more of the signal to drop across the load and not be reflected. The RL, Return Loss, number is used to spec how much energy is lost looking into a SPECIFIC frequency swept through the cable terminated with a set resistive load. A cable may be 70 ohms instead of 75 ohms, for instance.
You can have SRL, Structural Return Loss, and this VARIES the load to minimize reflections. So we spec the consistency of the STRUCTURE, not the ability to match a set 75 ohm load. Audio is more like SRL than RL as a cable or speaker CHANGES impedance at every frequency so a true RL type match or even SRL match is impossible. Worse, the real to imaginary component vectors change, too. This means two cables that are exactly 75-ohms can have two different RL values. One is more reactive than the other but the VECTOR of both is 75-ohm magnitude. RL looks at the REAL part of that vector. Notice on the graph below, we have a series of points that are 100-ohms on this Ethernet cable, and all because each frequency point has a different reactive component. Notice too, that the RL loss INCREASES (more loss) the farther right you go in the graph.
The situation is true at AUDIO FREQUENCIES but is far, far WORSE to manage. we don’t have a RESISTIVE load (speaker) or cable which is not even close to the same impedance at all frequencies in passive cable.
Audio speakers circuits are TERRIBLE inconsistent loads, and audio cables are terrible at matching to those loads…they can’t, and don’t. The physics says so. The network of the amp, cable and speaker will alter the simple reflection and yes, change the sound. What is good is audio cable, and speakers, are almost always less reactive and variable as you go UP in frequencies where less and less power is used, making things easier on the amplifier. Look at your speakers impedance traces and cable impedance traces. Good luck with that as most won’t want you to see that trace.
Galen
Were these at AXPONA? I listened to as set of planer magnetics somewhere in the upper floors that was wonderful sounding, and very affordable. But, they used a single small sub, too. I could kill myself for not taking note as I though I’d remember after 146 rooms! A must recommend speaker for people to trial.
I like my CLX but these were very, very good if this is what I heard. This matches up to my AXPONA guide - Sanders in room 1429. I give them a kick-ass award for sound and value.
Galen
I think Roger Sanders and company we’re at the show. He’s a kindred spirit because engineering is what drives his product development. No BS or hype just science to back up the great sound and technology. Can’t say enough about their product support. Second to none.
If they were planar magnetics (not stats) and < $3,000 my guess they could have been Eminent Technology LFT-8b’s. I have not heard a pair, but I’ve never seen anything but positive reviews.
One of the smaller Magnepan models is a possibility, as well.
The Sanders hybrid electrostats are ~$18k (including a DSP crossover and a Magtech amp for the t-line bass. Roger maintains that curved stators (a la M-L) cause blurring of the sound due to differences in arrival time, hence the flat stator on the 10e’s. Very nice sounding, even with a narrow sweet spot.
Hmmm, Eminent and Mags weren’t in the AXPONA show guide. I may be off on what I thought the price was. This is driving me nuts, as they sounded wonderful.
I can firmly say the CLX do not have a blurred image, as the CLS line source is designed to load the room more evenly, and you hear the direct sound off the panel curvature closest to you.
Flat panels STILL have a distance issue to your ear but again, you hear the most direct sount but the room is not loaded as evenly.
Panels aren’t perfect for horizontal dispersion, but controlling this is why they sound so good…rooms sound awful most of the time. Keep the room out of it. If anything, the CLS panel hurts reflected sound, not direct sound, if too close to walls.butvto say CLX don’t image? You should live with a pair. Not so at all. A smaller sweet than dynamic drivers, he’ll yes? I don’t care. I never listen to my Dynaudio C4`s outside their best spot, why? How is off axis performance helping?
But, the CLX image much more precisely across the soundstage. They do what panels do, image and with quickness that is hard to ignore.
Galen
The new smallest Maggie was at the show but I haven’t known Bruce from Eminent to do shows in years. His shop is less than 10 miles from my house but I have never heard a pair of his speakers. I knew him from his turntable and tonearm days.