Quad S-2


Recently acquired a pair of these speakers to replace my trusty 14 year old Castle Richmond 3i's.  According to the manual they need 50 hours run in before sounding their best. I've got about 30 hours on mine to date, but am already really impressed with them and they are a significant upgrade on the Richmond 3i's, which were very well regarded in their day.  I haven't owned or heard many speakers in my lifetime for comparison, but these do sound extremely good to my ears and are highly regarded by the few owner reports that I've come across.  So, I'm a little puzzled as to why they don't appear to be very popular, at least I rarely see them mentioned on hi-fi forums.  I wonder if the reason could be that Quad are not a go to speaker brand like KEF, B&W or Dynaudio to name a few? Or, perhaps more likely, that people, especially those in the UK, tend to shy away from what was originally a UK manufactured speaker that is now a part of the IAG group and manufactured in China? Then again, the answer could be simply that the S-2 simply doesn't appeal to many folk, perhaps due to a dislike of ribbon tweeters?
moffer

Showing 5 responses by audiotroy

Feil nobody likes your bull .

And it is about you. You have 0 experiece with Quad loudspeakers 

We mention other products to raise points. In the case of Quad without any compairisons to other products their level of quality would not be evident.

We also mention the other products we sell to illustrate that we have many of the competetive lines.

Keep it up feil you are only gaining us more clients.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ
Guys we sell both the Quad S series and the Z series, we also sell Dali, Kef and many others. 

We feel that the Quads both the S series and the Z series offer extraordinary sound quality for the money.  The Quad designed ribbon tweeter is both smooth and yet has fantastic detail. 

The Quads throw a huge sound stage and have suprisingly deep bass for the size of the cabinets.

 The Z1 has an even larger sound stage and an even cleaner midrange 

If Abrasia says the Quads aren't exciting, I think he means that they don't have that type of etteched in your face kind of detail that some people may find to be exciting, the top end of the Quad's strikes a perfect balance  of detail with listenablity. 

Personally he haven't found a competitive speaker in this price point  which can rival them, we are awaiting the new Kef R 3 monitors which will make a fascinating comparison between these two loudspeakers.

For the record both the S series and the Z series are highly rated and have won loudspeaker of the year in the UK. 

As per distribution Mofi distribution is slowly putting out more dealers as more people become aware how remarkably good the Quads are.

Most of today's value oriented loudspeakers B&W, KEF, Golden Ear, Dali, and many others starter models other than things like the B&W 800 or KEF Reference series are made in the companies own factories in China. 

Quad is owned by IAG a very large Chinesse company who owns many audio brands, they are very vertically oriented and they make their own drivers, cabinets, crossovers, even the binding posts and mounting plates are made in house, the quality of the product is top notch.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Quad dealer
Fail it is called a discussion

Please add to the discussion do you sell Quad loudspeakers? We do.
As we stated previously Mofi distribution is slowly increasing distribution.

The issue today is there are not a lot of brick and mortar stores left and many stores dont actively pursue bringing in new prodocts especially ones which may outperform their older established brand partners.

Our philosophy is to actively pursue what we feel are exceptional products.

We got the Quad S series after reading Ken Metcalfs review in Stereophile and we love ribbon tweeters.

Also we wanted to offer our clients something that looked more conventional then the Kef LS 50

So yes the Quads are hard to find but they are worth seeking out.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ
Yes twoleftears, Tenacious is one of their dealers so are we. I think your post was directed as stab against, us hence you nice use of bold type. Tencacious was and is free to write on these posts as well. 

We wiil be exhibiting at CAP next year.

There is one major differnce between us and them which is we sell most of the competitive brands in the price range, and so we are in unique position to answer questions on not just the Quads, we sell KEF, Dali, Legacy, ELAC, Paradigm to name a few. 

Which is one of the reasons we mentioned the new KEF line will be a fascinating comparison vs the Quads as they are getting huge accolades in the UK as the new speakers to beat at this price range. 

Twolefteares and of course Mr. Feil, it is because we sell most of the major players in each price range is why our posts are considered valuable by many people.

We will agree with you that the Quads are superb for the money, the Z4 were originally $5k at their new price of $4k they are a bargain.

The only issue with the Z4 and Z3 is they don’t go extremely low in the bass other than that they are rather extraordinary.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ