Quad 989/2905 all around qualities

Hi Katamapah,

This is what i mean...building a great system is as much about the right blend of equipment as it is about buying good individual components.

In the case of the 2905s, they have certain strengths...played with the right equipment, those strengths will come to the fore. With the wrong equipment, the strengths may not come forward...or worse, their weaknesses may be further exposed.

Even when you have optimized your system...you may find you tend to play certain kinds of music more often than others. Some systems will play guitar quartets well, female jazz vocals...but not be able to deliver the full weight, majesty of a complex symphony...so you might end up listening to Ella Fitzgerald and Eric Clapton more than Mahler or Beethoven's 7th.

On a related but separate note, i have found many of my buddies (and I) who started out enjoying 'warm and fuzzy' have found that along the path to ever-improving audio...we tend to find that the right balance of higher and higher quality audio components (typically more linear) seems to result greater overall satisfaction. I think we all try to maintain that ear to warm...but linearity helps in detail, echo, decay, etc...which is also an important part of the musical experience.

"just a thought..." :)

One of the problems is to get know the equipment.
It is almost impossible from one-time listening.
To know the characeter of the speaker, you need to listen to it with different cables and amplifiers at least.
It is not rare that dealer pairs one type of equipment he's selling with other type of equipment he's selling for the only reason he's selling them both, but it is seldom a perfect match. I am not talking about the 989, i heard it in "appropriate" setup consisting of Quad mono blocks and Quad pre. If you are buying second hand your situation may be worst. You have one specific setup (sometimes owner is transition to another setup, so the amplifier he has is not exactly the one that matches the speaker he is selling etc).
Of course, i am not expecting a dealer to have each and every equipment and do any pairing i want. Actually i spend quite some dealer-time with no significant decision yet.
All i am trying is to emphasize the point that unless you familiar with the equipment through different combinations, it is very difficult to see whenever this particular speaker will blend with some yet unknown equipment in the future to form a sound that subjectively good for me.
This is the reason i try to find a speaker that i like, that would sound approximately close to my subjective "perfect" and then i can buy this speaker and build a set around him sooner or later.
At least, i have a reference set to start playing with...
May be i am wrong with my approach. But how else can i "distinguish" a speaker ? I should either listen to it in many different sets (music types) - problematic, or i should find a set at some "sane" budget that will play the speaker the way i want it to...

As for a precise equipment.
Again, i tend to agree with you, although i, myself, still don't feel this way :-) But my recent searches show the more precise equipment is, the more different music types it is able to play.
The problem, it starts to lack magic and becomes more analytical (and fatigue) to listen to. On the other side, SF and Quad never sounds too analytical and probably SF being a dynamic speaker is not bad as all around.
Guarnieri Homage is probably my next homework...

Correction:
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This is the reason i try to find a SPEAKER IN A SET that i like, that would sound approximately close to my subjective "perfect" and then i can buy this speaker and build a set around him sooner or later. At least, i know there is one certain set that i basically liked the sound of my speaker in and i know exactly what this set was...
Given general room resemblance, budget "sanity" of the set and future fine tuning of sources/cables - it brings some hope in the mess :-)

Hi, do you have any expirience with HPS-938 (Hyperion) spekers ? Do they need a large room to breathe ?
How good they are for classical music ?

Hi...have not heard Hyperions. As for speakers, i usually evaluate 2 ways. First, using electronics similar to what i have at home (or the same if possible)...that way i can "calibrate" what i am hearing from the speaker (since i have a good idea of what the rest of the system sound like with my speakers at home). (Room itself aside of course!)

Second, i will listen to speakers with electronics that might optimize the sound to understand what it is capable of. Nothing replaces home audition, but we cannot always take everything home to listen! good luck.