By popular demand.


Several members have requested that I post my system which I have finally managed to do. Please pardon the shots that are out of focus. I am not the world's most gifted photographer or even close. I have done my best to explain things but I'm sure there will be at least a little confusion do please ask questions. Most of the requests have occurred here in analog so I posted it here. There is an analog component but it is rather plain Jane in comparison to the rest of the system. 
128x128mijostyn
Indeed! Impressive story. I've had the pleasure of hearing stacked Quads with a Decca Kelly ribbon on Croft OTLs. No subs. Large room. Opera. Late 80s. Nice. 
If you come across another pair you might try stacking them.
Not enough room and I prefer the superior focus and intimacy of the point source from the single pair.
Fair enough. Very difficult speaker to match subs to. The Harleys never quite made it. If you ran them up higher to take the load off the Quads they became very noticable. I do not think even digital bass management could have gotten them to work. 
I would love to try four 10" drivers in two enclosures, balanced force configuration with a digital crossover which I know is an enanthema to you but an analog one would never work. Nothing like a challenge. The single most noticeable defect the Quad has is the lack of low bass. The rest is so endearing that most Quad users are happy to overlook this and for the sake of purity, Quad users usually shun anything digital. Given the performance of early CD machines very understandable. Digital has moved on. As long as it stays at 24/96 and higher it can be very listenable but, it does sound different than vinyl. I agree with Michael Fremer on this one. As long as conversions are done at 24/192 or higher they are invisible. 

The Hartley woofer was actually a 24" driver. Matching subs with the ESL was for years unsatisfactory to most QUAD owners, but that was before the GR Reaearch/Rythmik OB/Dipole was introduced.

I made my own stands for stacking pairs of QUADS: three layers of 3/4" MDF glued together! Like @noromance, I prefer singles, also naked. Great on small ensemble music (Baroque, acoustic Blues, Bluegrass, Folk, Singer-Songwriter, etc.) and of course vocals, but with very-limited maximum SPL capability (subs help increase that). I have a pair of the QUAD front grilles made by Jerry Crosby, but no grill is even better. Ugly as hell, but oh well.

Any of you guys ought to hear the three- pairs- of —quad -57 system that is owned by a local friend. Dave Slagle of EMIA built the amplifiers that drive each speaker via a single interfacing transformer per speaker. So, he eliminated the quad audio step up transformers and all the associated electronics built into each speaker. It’s not quite direct drive but the sound is perhaps best I’ve ever heard. And that is a level of praise that I do that easily or happily confer on any system other than my own.