Gradient Woofer for ESL 57

Hi Ggavetti,

I'm using the Gradient SW57's for a few years now. I managed to buy them from someone who decided to go for stacked Quads and needed the money to make this happen.
They do work very well. For starters, the ESl57's have some nasty buzzes and rattles when playing the lowest frequencies they have in them, and the subs prevent these.
The SW57's have a fantastic detailed and fast bass. The fact that they're stereo dipole subs is causing them to blend in fantastically with the main speakers, and the stereo image is never getting blurred.
I'm not using them with the original crossover at this point in time, but use a digital crossover instead. Reason is that this gives more freedom to experiment with settings, crossover types, tricks like the biquad transform to add an additional octave to the lower end, and so on. Having said that, the original crossover does do its task very well. After many iterations of digital crossover settings, I end up at settings that are very close to what's in that box. It only has no biquad transform to extend the bottom ens, and once you've heard the subs play as low as 20Hz you don't want to go back anymore!
The visual match with the ESL's is very nice, too. Compared to the many types of stands that are made for the ESL57, the SW57's are much nicer to look at. I read that you're now using the SW63's in a small room, I promiss that the SW57's are much more acceptable for the wife and kids!

Ggavetti,

I have Duke's Planetarium Beta system. The SWARM subs are superb, and I believe they would be a great match for your 57s. Pitch definition is really quite extraordinary. The sub units themselves are quite small, with an 11" X 11" footprint (each). And just so you're aware, the last speakers I owned were SoundLab A-1PX and have owned ESL-63s previously.

Mrtennis,

I also thought that I never would be happy with anything other than a panel sub. The SWARM changed my mind.

Mr. T, you need to hear dipole woofers or sealed acoustic suspension. You already know the problem with panels and low frequencies, neither enough surface area nor excursion to achieve the necessary volume displacement. Panels would have to be the size of your front wall. With today's technology I doubt there's any getting around cones for the frequencies below 50 or 60 Hz.

i have quad 57s. i am reluctant to try cone subs. i would much prefer a panel sub, such as the bass panel of magnepan's latest effort.

Yes, I've heard about the planetarium...but I have a pretty small room, and I don't think it will help me.

Regarding your initial point (quads are so fine) I certainly agree with you. This is an amazing speaker if matched to the right amplifier. That said, I like it much better with the Gradient SW-63. If you listen to a lot of Jazz as I do, and like to hear the bass among other instruments, there is no comparison. The SW-63 are pretty tight, fast, and go down to at least 30Hz. The reason of my post is that I consider the combination ESL-57 + Gradient SW-63 to be superior than the Quad only...so I wondered whether the SW-57 is an even better match. Additionally, the SW-57 is smaller and looks nicer given that it was designed to fit perfectly the ESL 57.

Sorry I do not mean to hi jack your thread but Quads are so fine and Duke is darn good at what he does.

I wonder how Duke's Planetarium bass system (where he uses several subs to avoid room nodes) at Audio Kinesis would be with Quads

http://www.audiokinesis.com/

'By using multiple subs spread asymmetrically around the room, each sub will produce a unique peak-and-dip pattern at the listening position. The combined average of these unique peak-and-dip patterns is much smoother than any one of them would be, resulting in more natural-sounding bass with excellent pitch definition.'

Just a thought. I know the Gradients were designed with the Quads in mind.