AR-1W / Janszen 130 Electrostatic combination

[Guest postjob62]

I have a pair of each of these arriving shortly and thought I'd ask advice from any folks here who had experience with this combination.

First, the Janszen instructions show the electrostatic unit simply being hooked up in parallel with the 4 ohm taps of the 1W. Since the Janszen 130 is 8 ohm impedance, wouldn't that parallel combination present about 2.5 or 2.6 ohms to the amp? Or, does the fact that they are self-powered somehow mitigate the impedance to something more amplifier-friendly when used with the 1W's?

Secondly, when this combination was in vogue, wouldn't it have been powered mainly by tube amps in the 20-30 watt range? And if my reasoning regarding the 2.6 ohms is correct, could these low powered amps sustain this sort of a load? I don't have a tube amp, but my thinking is to power them with an early SS receiver (Marantz 2230) that is similarly powered and capacitance-coupled. I also thought I would try Villchur's 1 ohm inline resistor trick to more emulate tube sound. I know the 2230 will handle 4 ohms, but I'm not sure about 2.5 (if that is correct). Do I need more power, or perhaps a different approach?

I've heard so much about this combination I just had to try it, but I'm a little in the dark. Any suggestions or comments are appreciated.

Ed

[Guest Bret]

Ed -

I'm only familiar with the Janszen two-panel unit not the four-panel. I would think that it would not matter.

I used to run a Janszen panel and a 1W exactly the way you describe. There was no 8-ohm strap on the woofer and the two units were just run in parallel. The "original" amp driving this combination was a Dynakit MkII tube amplifier. I'm almost certain that I remember when this amp was used you *did* use the 8-ohm "strap" across the woofer.

But don't quote me.

As I hooked it up to other solid state receivers over the years the strap was never in place. You can quote me on that.

On a completely seperate note; as I have come to understand since visiting this site (I never understood it before), impedance is frequency-dependent, meaning that there is never a time a "complete circuit" (that's how I have to view it) is made through both the Janszen and AR-1W at, oh, 50Hz. The Janszen panel's impedance will be extremely high at 50Hz. So a very high load and a 4ohm load is not "low" after you do the calculation.

I suspect the strap on the Dynakit was to "help-out" the amp. A solid state amplifier just didn't need the help.

Took me a while to grasp the concept (never having had a need, previously). Trying to make a "model" in my head of a speaker's impedance in which the speaker looked just like a resistor just was hard reject and unlearn. Some of the graphs of driver impedance vs frequency were very helpful in that regard.

Bret

[soundminded]

No direct experience with this combination but the impedence should not be a problem. The woofer circuit is only nominally 4 ohms over its operational frequency range and the tweeter circuit is only nominally 8 ohms over its operational frequency range. For each one, as you move away from their operational frequency range, the circuit impedence rises thereby keeping low frequencies from reaching and damaging the tweeter and high frequencies from reaching and causing distortion in the woofer. This is the purpose and function of the crossover network. The series elements, the capacitor in the tweeter's case and the inductor in the woofer's case do the trick.

[dynaco_dan]

Hi there

I was lucky enough to have had a pair of Janszen 130 panels and Microstatic tweeter array on loan when they were newly out.

If I remember correctly the Janszen were available in 8 and 16 ohms, ( don't quote me, but I do have the sales brochure buried in my museum ).

These were installed in parallel with my AR-3A woofer only, which rolls off at 575 hz.

The woofer in the AR-3A in theory rolls off at 575 hz and the Janszen comes down to around 500 hz ( I'll confirm this in the near future ). This made for a nice blend.

The 12" woofer had a 4 ohm rating based on a 1000 hz reading which with a AR-3 would be the same.

The AR-3A was into the midrange with it's 4 ohm rating at 1000 hz, not the woofers.

The 12" woofer went up into 20 - 40 ohms under 100 hz.

I imagine the AR-1W - Janszen combo had a mid range overlap but still must have sounded real nice.

Have a good one.

>No direct experience with this combination but the impedence

>should not be a problem. The woofer circuit is only nominally

>4 ohms over its operational frequency range and the tweeter

>circuit is only nominally 8 ohms over its operational

>frequency range. For each one, as you move away from their

>operational frequency range, the circuit impedence rises

>thereby keeping low frequencies from reaching and damaging the

>tweeter and high frequencies from reaching and causing

>distortion in the woofer. This is the purpose and function of

>the crossover network. The series elements, the capacitor in

>the tweeter's case and the inductor in the woofer's case do

>the trick.