Quad ESL owners question

I have Magnepan 2.7s as well as the ESLs.

They all sound different. Quads are a pain in the ass and have a very small sweetspot. On the other hand...

You'll get some of the dispersion qualities from other dipoles but the imaging is different on different speakers. I don't really think quads sound natural as much as they sound musical.

I think you will get a similar type of musicality out of some of the english speakers like the spendors and maybe out of some di-poles. The phase coheerence is more like a dunlavy but the freq is night and day different.

If you like the quad midrange, try some ls3/5a's or spendor 3/5's as well as looking into other planar speakers.

Spendor SP-1s. I had my first Quads in 1964 and was a dealer for years. I got my first Spendors about 1970. They are close to being as uncolored as the Quads and have more bass and top. They were designed by an engineer who had worked at the BBC for years[this is also true of the Harbeth]. They have been used as broadcast monitors by most of the large national radio networks in Europe,e.g. England, Germany, Sweden and others. They are available at very reasonable prices on Audiogon, they currently retail for about $5700 and I have seen them for around $800.

BTW. I also have a Spendor S5e and it doesn't come close to the sound of my ESL 2805

Sound Lab or ATC are other options. Gordon Holt used Sound Lab for years - I believe he now uses ATC. I don't think ATC midrange beats a great electrostatic but it comes close and of course it does other things that electrostatics generally can't do as well (such as less beaming issues and a much wider sweetspot, dynamics and high SPL output). Of course, ATC's will not have the acoustic ambience of a panel that radiates forwards and backwards (nice for chamber, church or low level classical music)- so it depends on your needs - horses for courses...