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Quad 2805 and room placement

I am interested in the 2805 but before I ask for a demo I would be grateful for advice on room placement.
I have a room about 23 feet square. A pillar restricts the listening area to about 2/3rds of this area, so the right hand speaker will be about 4 feet from the side wall and the left hand speaker roughly equidistant from the side walls.
I understand that distance from side walls does not greatly affect the Quad's performance. Am I right here?
A possible problem is, however, that I really cannot have the speakers more than 3 feet from the wall behind them. At present I have Linn Keltiks and have always had problems with "peaks" in the bass response in spite of adjusting the aktiv cards and the distance from the wall.
Will l have a similar problem with the Quads? Also, I don't really want damping material/curtaining behind the speakers.
Would be most interested to receive anyone's advice or comments.
If you can add advice on amplifiers (909,Quad 40 II or other) would be interested to hear it, though possibly I ought to start another thread for this question.
Regards
Brian
brianog
chazzbo
1,007 posts
 
Ask the man who owns one.Great response.My reading is that while you don'ty want to overpower them this is a speaker that will benefit from more current then many folks think.A 40 to 100 watt.Maybe and Arc 100 watt for about $3500 used is what I would want.But in that sized room my EAR 40 watt especially with it's EL34 (best for mids) would do the trick nicely.I'd go tubes be they Seperates or Intergrated.With old 63's they always sounded best and since you don't need hge amounts of power, affordable.
Cheers
Chazz
tricon_dave
96 posts
 
Hi Brian,

I am a little confused about your room being 23 square feet, do you mean 230? If so, that is a little bigger than my room.

I have been listening to my new 2805's for about 100 hours now and they sound fantastic! They are the best speaker I have ever owned, although I have owned more expensive over the years.

My room is 13' X 16' X 9' ceiling. I have them set up along the long wall, about 5' out. They are 10' apart measured from the center of the speakers. My listening seat is 9' from ear to the center of each speaker and my chair is about 1' from the back wall. I have diffusion behind each speaker (plants and louvered/curtained windows) and absorption behind my listening chair. The speakers are toed in so that they would intersect about 3 feet behind my listening seat.

This set-up seems ideal. Bass is very good, smooth and as full and tight as previous dynamic driver speakers I have owned. Imaging and soundstaging is world class, better than my AP Virgo's and Libras. The resolution and transparency is like nothing I have heard before.

I am using an EL34 based Rogue Cronus integrated, which has been highly modified by Mark O'Brien at Rogue with upgraded parts, wiring, simplified circuits, etc. It is 30 wpc in triode, and sounds really good. From what I have read, the EL34 is a great tube to use with Quads and 30 wpc is plenty of power in my room. I have an EL84 based Scott 222, but have not tried it yet, nor have I tried any solid state yet.

You will also notice that with the Quads, you will probably listen at lower levels than other speakers because you do not need to turn them up as loud to hear all the detail. To me, they sound "louder" at my typical 80db listening level than any previous speaker I have owned.

I would definitely ask for the home demo. If you can get them set up reasonably well, you won't be returning them! Good luck and keep up posted on your experience.

Dave
brianog OP
3 posts
 
Hi everyone,
Many thanks for your response - most helpful comments.
Dave - my room is approximately 23 feet by 23 feet so it is a large room. The problem is that there is only one position for the loudspeakers - about 3 feet from the wall behind them. The door into the room, in the right hand side wall, is about four feet from the right hand corner, if you see what I mean, - when opened 90 degrees its edge will not be far from the right hand speaker.
By the way, Duke, I haven't bought them yet! Need to sell my present system first which may be difficult as the dealer no longer takes equipment in part exchange.
Anyway, your comments are really helpful.
I suppose I would really like the 2905's (if I can afford them) but they are really too big. Shame they do not make them in Classic finish - this would probably make them look smaller.
Regards. Any further comments gratefully received!
Brian
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