Electrostatic Speakers: Understanding Theory and Model

[daweng]

Trying to understand some course material and I decided to look into electrostatic speakers. I can't seem to apply electrostatic theory formulaes to the speaker model.

There are two stators and a diaphragm in the speaker, my current guess is that the two stators act like a capacitor and hence act like a infinite line of charge also as a parallel plate.

 

[CharlesP]

Electrostatic speakers are indeed parallel plate copacitors with something soft in between the plates so they can move. The must take enough voltage to hurt.

 

[Loren Booda]

Electrostatic speakers, as a result of their high potential voltage, were often ruined over the years by cigarette smoke fouling what I believe you call stators (not unlike the action of eco-friendly "scrubbers" in high-tech chimneys). Their reproduction of heavy bass was problematic, I think because such a capacitive circuit tends toward greater efficiency at higher frequencies and shallow excursion of the diaphram.