Quad vs. Martin Logan?

Though I admire Maggies, once my ear latched onto the "stretched tight plastic film midbass" sound, it's been hard to overlook it. But some listeners find that sound attractive (drum head like tightness, maybe) and enjoy it. No moving coil system sounds anything close to that, no matter its size or price. So IMO, the taunt tympanic diaphragm is creating its own sound. Again, Maggies are deserving of their admiration (I tip my hat to their excellent American made innovative heritage) but that one weakness keeps me from enjoying them. Their ribbon tweeter is superb.

For my part, and based upon the Electrostatic speakers that I have operated over the years, I would, personally, place them in the following order of fidelity.

A. Martin Logan CLX (with and without Descenti's to taste), Sound Lab A-1/U2, Quad ESL 57.

B. Quad ESL 2905/2812, KingSound King III.

C. Quad ESL 63.

I retain the ML CLX Aniversary/Descenti combo and a couple of pairs of ESL 57's.

Just curious how does a 9 year old thread get resurrected

By posting...

I love resurrecting old threads that are worthy of resurrecting. Now it's a 2.3 year old thread. And yeah, I'm resurrecting it by posting (thanks Jim;-)

I'm absolutely loving my Quad ESL-2805s and it happened only after a *lot* of a'goners told me I'd love em. Got a problem with the lack of bass? First, I'd say listen to make sure they don't already have enough bass since, depending on your room, they may have plenty for you. Second, why not just pick up a pair since they're cheap, get a $200 electronic crossover (i have a dbx solely for this purpose)  and a pair of excellent subs, figure out which roll-off and xover frequency works for your room and your subs and never look back.

Regarding Maggies vs. electrostatics ... I've never heard Maggies with the same dynamics and well ... realism. Not saying it can't be, but make sure you do your own comparisons before just assuming the Maggie fans above understand this very important value proposition offered by electrostatics. It's been by far the most surprising feature for me. Just don't play em too loud.