Opinions on Pure Audio Project Quintet 15 Horn 1 Please

i have not tried these (nor heard them) but i too have been curious

i trust you saw the steve guttenberg review on youtube... 

with several 15 in woofers per side, i would hope that subs would not be needed for most applications

it is interesting there are all the center driver choices provided to the buyer, but i wish they would pick the one that is best sonically, and say that is THE speaker to buy - i feel they evade some responsibility providing all those choices if the speaker does not fully please, whatever the customer chooses

that said my concern with so many of these large bass driver open baffle models is the integration of the woofers with the tweeter/mid - it seems that neither are quite ideal to reproduce the absolutely essential midrange frequencies (that was my own finding when i had the spatials...)

there are many folks with great ears, refined tastes, that really like ob speakers, such as the spatial m and x series -- most seem to use tube amps to drive them, which certainly tends to add more flesh and body to mids/voices in comparison to most ss amps

the bass of these ob speakers are truly excellent, fast, deep, tuneful, very natural propogation pattern/bloom, it is an absolutely towering strength of this design, no doubt

but as time passed, i just could not find peace with how the mids (and especially voice, piano, acoustic guitar, woodwinds) were reproduced, and even though my big harbeths and spendors can’t do bass as well as the spatials i had (they’re very good, but not to the exceptional level of the ob’s) to my ear, the big-boy bbc monitors get the midrange really right... and that took priority for me, how i listen

ralph, first of all, i had the m3 sapphires (at clayton’s suggestion when we spoke, and i was debating x vs m series, he suggested the m’s) - clayton is a great guy btw, responsive and helpful, truly wants you to be happy, i really wanted to make these work for me

second, yes i did have 5 ft behind (to front wall), 3 feet to sides... i have had maggies and quad esl’s, still have the quads, know the setup drill

third, as for amps, in the year i had them, i tried many many:

linear tube audio zotl40 ref

audio research ref 75, vt50, vt100-2, 100.2

belles sa-30

hegel rost, h190, h390

cary300b se-i

sony ta1-1es

audiosector patek se

... so i tried solid state and tube, high and low power... gave them every chance...

@dagda

i believe you are thinking about this correctly, and have identified the most significant risk

it is too bad, on paper, these speakers hold a great deal of promise but the trial aspect can be costly and cumbersome

big speakers, expensive, less-than-well-established maker, home base of maker far far away -- makes it tough! 😨