Typical **** from **** mouth.
Quad ESL 63 In Another League Now
I’ve owned many speakers over 30 years. I now have owned a total rebuilt ESL 63’s with the work done by Electrostatic Solutions. Kent did a wonderful job and the speakers sounded better than stock that I can say for sure. During the last few months for the fun of it I added better power cords, though Kent said they cannot make a difference well I can tell you they do and they do in a big way, so if you own any Electrostatic speakers you owe it to yourself to put better power cords on them even the Signal Cable power cords were a big step up from the stock power cord.
So things were just great then I read in my Furman reference 20i manual that the high current outlets are great for active speakers, though I read it, I never tried it because they sounded so good. Well blow me away, I tried it, and wow, more natural, clearer, bottom end more dynamic, and so forth, but the lowering of the noise floor, brought forth detail, more natural body, warmth, and a pitch black background, i.e. a grayness or veil in comparison gone, and I mean gone.
I never knew just how good these speakers were until I did the power cords, but in addition what the Furman does, with lower impedance, reservoir or current on demand, and of course the isolation between any interaction of the components. I also added some nice ebony cones with a copper tip (cheap) on Amazon, for a nice tilt back of about one inch which opened up the speakers and really made imaging better.
In this hobby, we are always learning something, and the big lesson I keep learning is always try something, even when some may say it will not make a difference, such as power cords cannot impact the Quads, well they do so try it. The bottom end now really go low and tight, I added 2 small Mini Vee subs crossed over at 40Hz for that last bit of bottom end in the 20’s range.
The rest of my system is McIntosh 402 amp at 400 watts, Luxman C800F preamp, and the Esoteric K-01 SACD/CD player with streaming capabilities. All cables are Lessloss Marc-C( the best I’ve ever heard) regardless of cost and that includes the ones with the big network boxes. Power cords the Luxman (for the preamp) beats anything I’ve tried and that is the stock cord, Crystal Clear Opus for the Esoteric, Essential Sound MusicSound Pro for the McIntosh Amp. I use a pair of the Emotivia Power cords for the quads due to their length, they work just fine, the AntiCables reference 3 power cords work well also with a bit more mid-bass and warmth but were a bit too short.
No matter how long you’re in this hobby you can always learn, and improve the system without buying new gear, in fact, I would say the power cords can change the sound of your system as much as a new piece of gear and even the wall plates impact the sound, not just the ac outlet. That also was a surprise to me. Go figure!
So things were just great then I read in my Furman reference 20i manual that the high current outlets are great for active speakers, though I read it, I never tried it because they sounded so good. Well blow me away, I tried it, and wow, more natural, clearer, bottom end more dynamic, and so forth, but the lowering of the noise floor, brought forth detail, more natural body, warmth, and a pitch black background, i.e. a grayness or veil in comparison gone, and I mean gone.
I never knew just how good these speakers were until I did the power cords, but in addition what the Furman does, with lower impedance, reservoir or current on demand, and of course the isolation between any interaction of the components. I also added some nice ebony cones with a copper tip (cheap) on Amazon, for a nice tilt back of about one inch which opened up the speakers and really made imaging better.
In this hobby, we are always learning something, and the big lesson I keep learning is always try something, even when some may say it will not make a difference, such as power cords cannot impact the Quads, well they do so try it. The bottom end now really go low and tight, I added 2 small Mini Vee subs crossed over at 40Hz for that last bit of bottom end in the 20’s range.
The rest of my system is McIntosh 402 amp at 400 watts, Luxman C800F preamp, and the Esoteric K-01 SACD/CD player with streaming capabilities. All cables are Lessloss Marc-C( the best I’ve ever heard) regardless of cost and that includes the ones with the big network boxes. Power cords the Luxman (for the preamp) beats anything I’ve tried and that is the stock cord, Crystal Clear Opus for the Esoteric, Essential Sound MusicSound Pro for the McIntosh Amp. I use a pair of the Emotivia Power cords for the quads due to their length, they work just fine, the AntiCables reference 3 power cords work well also with a bit more mid-bass and warmth but were a bit too short.
No matter how long you’re in this hobby you can always learn, and improve the system without buying new gear, in fact, I would say the power cords can change the sound of your system as much as a new piece of gear and even the wall plates impact the sound, not just the ac outlet. That also was a surprise to me. Go figure!
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- 29 posts total
I am enjoying this exchange. @georgehifi You’re needed in another post: https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/is-my-dac-my-weakest-link |
Nothing there, that interests me. This one needs saving though as Quad ESL57’s are an icon of speakers and any BS being spread around them needs to be squashed, especially from the "directional" power cord B.S.’ers As Electrostatic Solution’s Kent McCollum said, "they cannot make a difference", he knows it’s impossible with just 5w of current draw for both speakers. It should make the B.S.’ers realize why it’s impossible, that’s why many Acoustat ESL models used wall warts, that had the thinnest twin flex power cable going to the speakers. Cheers George |
(sorry for long post) Agree with georgehifi that Quad ESL57’s are an icon of speakers (and ESL 63's as well for that matter) and any BS being spread around them needs to be squashed. Why invest in meaningless stuff and even recommend others to do the same on forums like this. Every ESL63 has a neon lamp that shows that (if in perfect condition) the panels need recharging only roughly once/minute using a fraction of a second current pulse from the HV power supply -- in other words the panels producing your sound are actually connected to mains and your esoteric and expensive power cord during a fraction of a second every minute. It then must be the mere presence of those expensive cables that produce this vast quality improvement you describe: more natural, clearer, bottom end more dynamic, and so forth, but the lowering of the noise floor, brought forth detail, more natural body, warmth, and a pitch black background, i.e. a grayness or veil in comparison gone, and I mean gone. I would even say you would get the a bigger quality improvement by buying a bunch of *very* expensive power cords (preferably bi-directional and water-filled) and putting them on the floor infront of your stereo (not connected to anything), since they would at least remove some unwanted floor reflexes. You can do a quick A/B test by turning off your right channel speaker and connecting a cheap, low quality power cord to your left channel ESL and flip the on/off switch that speaker. In the off stage the ESL will keep its charge for a long time and neither be connected to the lousy power cord nor all the noise coming from your mains outlet. You will then notice that you can't hear ANY difference att all in sound quality. Please note I'm not questioning your subjective observations, just our human brains are really lousy in terms of placebo thinking -- if we want to hear something changing, we definitely hear it. Same thing happened to me when borrowing a really expensive signal cable which my friend said was fantastic. I was extremely sceptical but very surprised when I heard substantial changes --- a more natural, clearer midrange and treble, some veil gone -- making me sit for a few hours, swapping between my favourite CDs. It then dawned on me that I was listening to CD, and I had connected the new fantastic cables between my preamp and DAC (not the CD).... If you want to make improve your ESL57s or ESL63s *for real*, I would suggest to do one or more things of the following in the list below (not necessarily the full list, these are obvious): (every item possible for DIY or using pros like Kent McCallum or Sheldon Stokes, OTA in Europe) - refurb your panels if older than, say 15-20 years (YMMV) -- 57s and 63s - upgrade your HV power supply --- 57s - get a proper stand with the optimal height --57s and 63s - fasten better or even remove some of the obstructing metal screens -- 57s, but only if no children or pets in the house (keep dust covers) - improve input components (esp. bipolar cap) -- 63s - replace all crossover caps and resistors -- 57s - power off your ESLs for a day and then use a pair of good headphones in parallel with one of your speaker connections to check if there is any difference in sound quality (e.g. sibilants on female voices) when connecting/disconnecting the amp to the (quiet) speaker. If it is, upgrade your amp -- 57s and 63s (any speaker really) - spend LOTS OF TIME trying out the best speaker placement (distance from rear wall, angle and distance to listener, height, and of course room treatment with diffusors and of absorbers. All of the above items provide REAL improvements, IMHO. Forget everything about power cord BS, sorry to say. ESL addict and audiophile for many, many years... |
- 29 posts total