@bdp24 "James Boyk, Pianist In Residence at the California Institute of
Technology (where he teaches), is a performing musician, recording
engineer at his label Performance Recordings, equipment reviewer, and
long-time audiophile. In one talk he gave, he described how the timbre
and tonality of his piano changes as a long-held notes/chord fades to
silence, the relative strengths of the fundamentals and all their
overtones changing as the notes fade. When he evaluates equipment, James
listens for the ability of the product under test to reproduce that
changing timbre he knows is contained in his recordings of he playing
his piano. Wow! Last I heard, his monitor and pleasure listening system
consisted a pair of the original Quad ESL’s, tube electronics, and a
Linn Sondek table."
That's pretty much where I ended up...a tube amplifier driving a pair of Quad ESL57s. Like James Boyk, timbre / tonality can make it or break it for me. I try listen to sounds I'm completely familiar with, and a component that alters that loses me. Don't want to risk kicking any sacred cows, but some of the most highly esteemed components sound quite wrong. I will say that the Quads do (far) better at that more than any other loudspeaker I've come across
That's pretty much where I ended up...a tube amplifier driving a pair of Quad ESL57s. Like James Boyk, timbre / tonality can make it or break it for me. I try listen to sounds I'm completely familiar with, and a component that alters that loses me. Don't want to risk kicking any sacred cows, but some of the most highly esteemed components sound quite wrong. I will say that the Quads do (far) better at that more than any other loudspeaker I've come across