Quad ESL owners question

Sound Lab

I had the 2805's for several years and loved them, but reliability issues forced me to sell before they turned into larger repair problems.

I have replaced them with the new Martin Logan Spires and have not looked back. The Spires have all the transparency, openness and midrange detail of the Quads, with better dynamics and real bass impact. Martin Logan reliability and customer service is an important consideration for me as well.

I have Magnepan 2.7s as well as the ESLs.

They all sound different. Quads are a pain in the ass and have a very small sweetspot. On the other hand...

You'll get some of the dispersion qualities from other dipoles but the imaging is different on different speakers. I don't really think quads sound natural as much as they sound musical.

I think you will get a similar type of musicality out of some of the english speakers like the spendors and maybe out of some di-poles. The phase coheerence is more like a dunlavy but the freq is night and day different.

If you like the quad midrange, try some ls3/5a's or spendor 3/5's as well as looking into other planar speakers.

Spendor SP-1s. I had my first Quads in 1964 and was a dealer for years. I got my first Spendors about 1970. They are close to being as uncolored as the Quads and have more bass and top. They were designed by an engineer who had worked at the BBC for years[this is also true of the Harbeth]. They have been used as broadcast monitors by most of the large national radio networks in Europe,e.g. England, Germany, Sweden and others. They are available at very reasonable prices on Audiogon, they currently retail for about $5700 and I have seen them for around $800.