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Have You Ever Owned QUADS?


I’m curious how many members here have owned any model of Quad Electrostatic speakers at any point.

I ask because I’d just been watching the video of John Atkinson’s presentation about his life in music and audio, and of course at one point early on he’d owned the original Quad ESL 57s.

When I got back into high end audio in the mid 90’s, back then it was still something of a badge of honour, or an audiophile rite, to have owned Quads at some point. The cliche was that you either still owned them, or you loved them, but became too cognisent of their deficiencies, and moved on....though always at the price of trying to get what the Quads did...but more....an elusive journey. The Quads always "haunt" you in the background.

Here’s my old Quads story:

I’d grown up listening to my Dad’s Kef 105.2 speakers and Carver Holographic amps, so I was well versed in high end sound, great imaging etc.

But like many it was my encounter with a Pal’s set of Quad ESL speakers - the 63s paired with a Dynaco ST-70 tube amp - that re-opened my mind to the possibilities in high end audio. That completely clear window, transparency, detail, lack of any box artifacts!

So inevitably my first "real" high end set up started with the ESL-63s (with a Conrad Johnson MV55 tube amp). Eventually I paired them with the Gradient di-pole subwoofers specially built for the ESL 63s, which were about as seamless a subwoofer/panel match as I’ve ever heard. I’ll never forget the huge wall of transparent sound that system produced.

But they were in a fairly small living room and the back monoliths, especially sitting on the Gradient subs, looked like huge room dividers. So aesthetics was one reason to start looking at other speakers.

Another was that, I’d sometimes bring up my old pair of little Thiel 02 speakers and set them up, and when I did I found I was getting something that I was missing from the Quads that I really liked. One was a more open, warm tone. For all their transparency, the Quads actually sounded just tad toward the "dark, rich" side, and a tiny bit in the charcoalish tone for instruments and voices. The box speakers (and some others I’d listened to) seemed to have a bit more "rightness" in the upper frequencies and "woody, organic" tone.

The other thing was that that really separated the box speaker from the Quads was the sheer palability and aliveness of the sound coming from the box speaker. The Quads presented amazing apparitions of vocalists and instruments, but they tended to sound as if in another room from me, not really moving the air so much, like viewing through a glass window. Whereas instruments like trumpets, bongos, drums, strummed guitar just rippled the air of the room coming from the little Thiels. I felt more connected and moved by what was going on through the Thiels.

So I ended up looking for a dynamic speaker replacement. I ended up replacing my Quad/Gradients with Von Schweikert VR-4 Gen 2 speakers, which were full range, and sounded big and rich in the midrange like the quads, and projected as huge and boxless a soundstage as I’d ever heard. They were as close to the "Quads in a box speaker, but doing all the things I want dynamically" as I found at the time.

Naturally, being an audiophile I moved on from the VR speakers as well.

But I have to say, even though I’ve had many great speakers pass through my home, I’m not sure I’ve ever truly surpassed or equaled the sound of the ESL-63s/Gradient combo. Maybe it’s a bit of memory distortion as well over time, but it was such a BIG wall of sound, and so hugely midrange oriented.

I’d never go back to ESLs as I know they don’t in the end satisfy me.

Still, the Quads still haunt me - but more the ESL 57s. I actually prefer the tone of the 57s to the 63s, finding them a bit more warm, golden toned and a bit more dense sounding. If I could fit the 57s anywhere in my home I’d have them as a second system.

How ’bout you folks?

Time has moved on, so I doubt the Quads still feature as much as a right of passage for audiophiles. But I’m curious about their status at this point in the journey of people on this forum.
prof
prof OP
3,479 posts
 

I occasionally visited a local tube amp designer who had double-stacked ESL-57s - I think he also employed a ribbon tweeter.

Talk about a wall o' transparent sound!  It was always a treat listening to that system.  Low WAF though....

(Though as I remember actress Faye Dunaway, of all people, had I think stacked quads!).
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Faye Dunaway? Honestly, she doesn’t strike me as a stacked Quads kind of gal. But I guess ya never know.
prof OP
3,479 posts
 
I know what you mean, goeff.  I always pictured Faye as being a more "high sensitivity horns w. single ended triode amps" type of gal.

Wonders never cease.
wout31
9 posts
 
Quad ESL’s, The Peter Walker wonders we call them, as they are a small miracle of engineering and devotion to try and accomplish where all others failed. We, is my brother and I, because he was the first to own a set of Quad ESL’s and I sneaked into his bedroom to listen when he was out.

Now we both own a set ESL-63.

But .... the good restauration of the 63’s has been a nightmare over the years. Several times I have had them refurbished for good money and most of the times I was disappointed about the result I got for that amount of money. I reside in Europe so maybe the good rebuilders are not around here.

So 2,5 years ago after another disappointment that set me back Euro 3.500 I decided to buy a scrap pair of ESL-63 and dismantle them to investigate what went wrong, and why the refurbished ESL’s never sounded as they should.

I will not go into debate whether the original ESL supersedes the ESL-63, but for me the fact that Peter Walker spend another 17 years to improve on the original ESL design says it all, but they are two totally different sets of speakers with both pros and cons.

I started out with my own set of ESL’s paired with the Quad II and 22 pre when I moved from my parents house to my own living space. But the cost of replacing tubes, damaged ESL panels urged me to move on. And the next step was a set of ESL-63 which, as the original ESL and Quad II set, I bought second-hand.

This set with early serial numbers 3219-3220 still has a dominant place in my current living room 35 years later.

But as I mentioned, I was not satisfied with the refurbish jobs done by several companies. The worst of them being Quad Musikwiedergabe in Gering Germany. This company has bought old original Quad equipment, but has a 100% commercial approach, which means: High price, low quality.

So when we started tearing down the scrap ESL-63’s we found out what went wrong in the refurbishing. Long story short, there is no (technical) respect for the delicate design Peter Walker brought into this HiFi world, and most people don’t understand the things that can go wrong when you don’t respect the original design.

So now 2,5 years into our research, with lost of failures, money and hard lessons learned we have now rebuild our own set of ESL-63 to the standard we always wanted, but never could get.

And so now we come to the point to what the ESL-63 is and what it can do.

It can reproduce human voice like no other loudspeaker can. It has distortion levels lower than any loudspeaker around. It’s bass is very tight and goes as low as 37 Hz without distortion. Try that with any conus speaker. Can it play loud? Loud enough for me. It has a soundstage and three dimensional audio image that make the speaker tottaly dissapear. So, I love them. The delay lines, when working properly only after a very good rebuild, give you a holographic sound image that places you in the music. Today I drive them with Schiit Freya pre-amp, Schiit Yggdrasil DAC and Schiit Vidar power amps, although the last ones are not the best match.

Will I ever replace my ESL-63’s for a conus speaker. Simple answer: NEVER! The Peter Walker design in my humble opinion is still a technical and design wonder, even after 35 years. I got to respect it more and more the more we found out during our rebuilding project. Nothing in this speaker is done by accident, everything is very well thought through and in a very delicate balance. Maybe, maybe if we finish this project we will start on the original ESL’s as they now have a cult status. The ESL-63 project was and still is a beautiful trip into the mind of a genius that Peter Walker was.

tjbearman
40 posts
 
I’ve owned my pair of ESL-57 since the 70’s and have always kept them in good shape, with one (transformer?) repair a while back. They still sound great. I haven’t owned any other speakers since then, although I often listen to others at shops and friends’ houses. I’m very impressed with many other speakers, but when I get home to my Quads, I hear something that was missing in other speakers. Maybe it’s not something missing, but something extra-exaggerated in other speakers. The Quads are just simply true. Yes, I have to sit in just the right spot for maximum enjoyment. Yes, I arrange my furniture around the placement of my Quads, but you do those kind of things for members of your family.

I listen almost exclusively to acoustic music (classical, jazz, voice) and that is where Quads shine, I think. I use either my Audio Research heat-generating Classic 30 tube amp in Winter and the old, reliable Quad 303 in Summer. I’ve had to replace the capacitors in the 303 once. I hear amp differences, but I would’t say one was better than the other. I listen to vinyl (Linn LP12) and digital (ripped CD/HDCD/SACD) with external DAC and enjoy both. Again, I hear differences, but can’t say one is better than the other.

There are many things in the audio world that are fads and many things that are the Emperor’s new clothes, but Quads ain’t either of those!
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