Quad 988 / 989 reliability ??

I fully agree with Hififarm. I can compare the 989 side by side with the 63, as far as sound, workmanship and quality of parts, as well as reliability are concernend and I regret the day for my part, on which I took in a pair of the 989s. Period.

The Hififarm post comes from someone who just two years ago -- before he and IAG America, the Quad importer, had a falling out -- told me that any reviewer worth his salt had a pair of Quads on hand. He said the Quads 988s and 989s were far better than the Dunlavy SC-IV/A, which I had at the time. He offered me a pretty good deal, actually, on a pair of 989s, and he said nothing about their poor build quality. If it's a product he was carrying, I would think he would have looked into that.

Anyway, the previous year, I think HiFi Farm was pushing Dunlavy. Before that, ProAC. Before that, Merlin. Before that, well, you get the picture. It changes often. Today it's Piega. Tomorrow, let me guess, Ensemble?

Sadly, Hi Fi Farm writes a note which casts great suspicion on their trustworthiness. After reading it I would expect that anything they carry at the moment would be fabulous while gear they no longer carry, but which used to be fabulous, is now unreliable junk. I had Quad 57s for many, many years. Yes, they do sound great if they're not arc'ing, if you limit your SPLs to something short of realistic, if the bass panels don't flutter while trying to do low frequencies, if you don't overdrive and burn them out with your 100 watt amp, etc., etc. There are now many dynamic speakers which have equalled, if not surpassed, the Quad's vaunted midrange and they wont break down.

Lets not glide into a thread of dealer- and Quad bashing. The Quad 63's midrange to my ears still clobbers most of even the most vaunted cones, inspite of what my esteemed beemer riding colleague cares to point out. I fully agree with him though on the 57, which I had in stacked form for over a decade and which for chamber music is unbeaten to this very day. I miss it, as if it were a long lost lover... and come to think of it, the Servo Statics too. Oh, what a Harem I had! (-;

When we first began bringing the new Quad to the U.S.,and yes we picked the first 20 pairs of speakers directly from the U.K.. We had no idea that there was going to be the problems that existed. After selling numerous pairs, and replacing a number at our expence ,we became suspicious of the qc. We started to sell the electronics, particularly the tube pieces, and had further breakdown and this is when we said what is up here. During this time we modified and replaced binding post and tried to make the speaker more appealing to new customers and one's who were owners Quad who might want the new product if it was superior to the original. Not once did I claim it was the superior to the 57 and was only different from the 63. We never carried ProAc ,still recommend Dunlavy and haven't sold Merlin since the middle 80's. We held great hope for the new Quad but it failed to meet our expectations. I would still reccommend a Quad for certain types of listening or for environmental reasons over others we sell but it is a case to case basis. This is why we have 63's on constant display in our showrooms.