This may not answer the OP's question, but I decided to have my long neglected Quad ESLs ('57s) restored along with my long unused Quad II amps. This is not intended to be my "main" system, but one I can enjoy in the house as a vintage set up, appreciating that the 57s do certain things extremely well within their obvious limits. Back in the day, I was never very successful at mating the '57s with subwoofers, and though I know things have improved on the subwoofer front, I'm not sure I'm going to try--at least on certain types of material, the old Quad can be spooky real. I guess that means I'm not playing Black Sabbath at full tilt, but life is full of compromises. :)
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One of the experiences that "hooked" me into high end audio was the day I walked into a stereo store in Sherman Oaks, Calif. and heard John Coltrane's tenor sax flowing out of a side room. I asked the guy at the counter who was playing the sax? He laughed and said: "Oh that's just the FM jazz station playing though a pair of Quad 57's." He took me into the room and sure enough, no live sax there. Just a pair of Quad's, and all Quad solid state electronics. It was the Quad 33 amp, the Quad 33 preamp, the Quad FM-3. All miniature in stature but glorious in sound. If I had an extra room where I could fit a vintage system, I'd most likely go with the above. Frank |
Hi whart - congrats on getting them set up. Would be interested in seeing a pic of the room so I can understand what is happening. I would be willing to go back into audiophile mode if I had the Quad II amps to compare with my Music Reference Rm10. :^) My 57 room can be seen on my AudioGon virtual system - last pic bottom right. I guess that means I'm not playing Black Sabbath at full tilt, but life is full of compromises. :) Come on over and bring your lps. :^) They will seduce and hook you with single instruments and female voices which sound like they are at the Microphone. They make the Acoustat sound colored. and veiled. Running them as a vintage second system with selected music is no problem and with many electronics. The issue comes ....and this day comes for everyone that listens to full range dynamic music .....you want to hear them compete with their main rig.. And this is where everyone discovers it is not plug and play. I think how much success one will have is based solely on how stubborn a personality one is, for making something work and.....is the individual the type to keep good gear and tweak. Or are they a frequent flyer, buying , selling, trading gear like stocks. If the later - the Quad 57 is not for you. It is very difficult to buy, sell, trade your listening space. Oregonpapa (Frank)- I ran the Quad SS preamp/amps for a time. The amp was the bigger 405 that you needed to insert limiters in so you didn't fry the speakers. They are good candidates IMO and work well for a second vintage system and on some material. The preamp very quirky. Cheers Chris |
If you watch the Fremer's tour of Audio Research plant, they showed two listening rooms; one with SF Aida's - obvious choice especially since they are owned by the same company, and used mostly for tours, and another in the back with Magnepan 20.7 used by the engineers to help with component selections and optimization. FWIW, the tour video is available online. One data point. |
Interview with Peter Walker Interviewer "How do you rate the merits of listening tests to instrument tests? " Peter Walker "We designed our valve (tube) amplifier, manufactured it, and put it on the market, and never actually listened to it. In fact, the same applies to the 303 and the 405. People say, "Well that's disgusting, you ought to have listened to it." However, we do a certain amount of listening tests, but they are for specific things. We listen to the differential distortion - does a certain thing matter? You've got to have a listening test to sort out whether it matters. You've got to do tests to sort out whether rumble is likely to overload pickup inputs, or whether very high frequency stuff coming out of the pickup due to record scratch is going to disturb the control unit. But we aren't sitting down listening to Beethoven's Fifth and saying, "That amplifier sounds better, let's change a resistor or two. Oh yes, that's now better still." We never sit down and listen to a music record through an amplifier in the design stage. We listen to funny noises, funny distortions, and see whether these things are going to matter, to get a subjective assessment. But we don't actually listen to program material at all. " |
@ct0517 Hi, Chris- not set up yet, not even restored yet. Will be sending the speakers to Kent, in the mid-West, hopefully within a week. We are moving out of our current house in NY and I thought this would be a good time to send stuff out for restoration rather than simply put it into storage. Oh, and we haven't yet bought another place to live, so it may be a few months till I can share some pictures. The Quad Its will be getting restored in Virginia, and I'll probably drop them off there, along with my old SP-10 table, for rehab. Our plan is to visit some friends in Nashville and Memphis, perhaps in NOLA, and eventually make our way to Austin, where I split time. That's where we will eventually relocate on a more permanent basis. The Black Sabbath- it does get a little play here. It was my introduction to Vertigo Swirl and once I got bitten by that bug, I started to explore the wonders of that catalog. Horses for courses. A little Janos Starker on the Quads could be heaven. Happy to post some pics once that system is set up. |
Right on Whart. Kent is a good guy over at EStat Solutions. I ordered EHT boards from him years ago. Can’t stress enough the importance of the subs here in the overall solution and fwiw, how "estatic" (sic) I am with the ones I chose. I found them in a recording studio - they were new in the box with full warranty. The Studio was using three and these were spares and for sale. Without naming brands, I will just say that when you have Phase, DB, Crossover FQ, plus more, all controlled with a small credit card sized remote control from your listening position. http://pdfasset.owneriq.net/7/59/759489fe-7a1b-4d1c-9604-af448eda70e6/759489fe-7a1b-4d1c-9604-af448e... Its hard to go back to a conventional sub with controls only on the box. You will never have to get up and go to your subs for adjustments. Make adjustments as you listen. Look forward to hearing about your adventure. Cheers Chris |
The Quad 57 can’t be beat for some music---small Baroque ensembles (well-recorded harpsichords sound in-the-room), acoustic music like Bluegrass and Jazz trios and quartets. And vocals of course! People who say that some speakers are not better for some kinds of music than for other kinds---that a speaker good at one kind will be equally good at another---are imo mistaken. Different musics suffer more from certain kinds of speaker failings than does other music. Sure, a speaker should be designed to reproduce all musics equally well, but a speaker’s strengths and weaknesses will affect different musics differently, depending on the nature of the music and it’s demands on the speaker. A speaker actually excelling in all areas of reproduction will be a very expensive one. For anyone buying on a restricted budget (who amongst us isn’t?), compromises and trade-offs must be expected and accepted, different speakers offering different strengths and weaknesses. As an extreme example, if a person listens only to solo piano, a speaker with even octave-to-octave tonal balance is a priority, other speaker abilities being less important to it’s reproduction. For a vocal music specialist, a speaker with low vowel-coloration will bring the most long-term musical satisfaction. For a Reggae music enthusiast, while those speaker abilities and attributes will benefit the music, they won’t to the same degree as will the speaker’s ability at rhythm and timing, which are absolutely essential to Reggae. If one’s speaker budget requires a choice between two speakers possessing different strengths and weaknesses, I sure would choose the speaker whose strengths are what my primary music requires and benefits most from, and whose weaknesses are what it suffers least from. |
^^^^^^^^ Hi Eric (Bdp24) In followup to your post, U know..... I keep changing music genres lately, more than usual. There really seems to be no rhyme or reason to it all. I can't explain it. I think it is due to stresses from the past holiday period. Probably the best feature of that Sub remote I mentioned in my last post, are the buttons along the bottom - 4 of them..... presets..... which can be selected for "four" personalized customized settings; One can set them if they choose, for different musical genres like Classical, Jazz, Classic Rock, Reggae, etc.... with varying amounts of DB, even different X over point for each, depending on how badly the music is compressed. Right now I have my four buttons set up for. 1) Classical 2) Classic Rock 3) Folk and 4) Adele The 4th category nicknamed such due to requests from my wife and her friends over the holidays. Should probably change it back to Jazz. Last two weeks in Dec can be a very stressful music period. Cheers Chris |
"People who say that some speakers are not better for some kinds of music than for other kinds---that a speaker good at one kind will be equally good at another---are imo mistaken." Those of us who can't afford the "perfect" speakers, resort to multiple room/system set ups for listening to different types of music. It might be a wash at the end cost-wise but it offers the opportunity to buy more toys to play with. |
Kalali My multiple rooms are due to the audiophile disease, curiosity. and have nothing to do with finding the perfect speaker as it does not exist. If I frequent a room long enough, a system kit, ends up in there. With different technologies, just to make it more interesting. Its a virus thing. Audiophiles seek change and are never happy with status quo....full stop. Whether you keep making changes to just one room, or multiple rooms, is irrelevant. Some, with multiple rooms available, are just better at multi tasking than others :^) At the height of glory, I think I had 5 rooms going. Not sure ask my wife. I am currently being contained to two adjacent rooms in the full basement of our home. Audio friends tell me I am lucky, but I feel like I can break out into a room upstairs where the Modded Acoustat Model 3’s are hiding at any time. |
Kalali 1/8/2017 +1 Nice thread ! The loudspeaker/Amplifier partnership should be viewed as a matched pair. When building a system one should first choose a loudspeaker, then find an amplifier (within budget) that is up the task. I made the mistake of purchasing a Quad 57, and was unable to find an amplifier that could do justice to it. I had to build a suitable amplifier. At that time ( A very long time ago ) the only serious amplifiers I was aware of were the Mark Levinson ML_2 and the Bedini. The ML_2 was the inspiration for my amp. ML_2 Mono - Pair 25, 50,100 watts into 8, 4, and 2 ohms My Amp Mono - Pair 50,100, 200 watts in 8, 4, and 2 ohms We never tested the amp at one ohm, but it was designed to be stable into one ohm. Eight 150 Watt Motorola bipolar output transistors per channel. |
I bought a Bedini 25/25 in the 90’s, specifically for my Quads. Pretty good for ss, the poor mans ML 2! I still want to get a little Music Reference RM-10 for them, which is THE amp for the speaker. But I’m presently focused on my Tympani T-IV’s, which require very different amplification. I’ll be bi-amping them, with the wonderful RM-200 Mk.2 on the midrange/tweeter panels. |
I wonder, just out of curiosity, what it would take to resuscitate a pair of those old Mark Levinson ML 2 amps. After all these years, they gotta have needs- are the parts unobtanium? I know Charlie King found a stash of some old ML parts at one point that he used to Frankenstein some tape preamps. If I didn’t already have the Quad II amps, I’d probably be interested in exploring other options. I did get to meet Peter Walker back in the day--he was pleasant to talk to- I was pretty young, but he was polite and tolerated my questions. In some ways, reviving this old gear is more interesting than buying current high end stuff off the shelf--I think my expectations are different, and there is something satisfying about getting a commanding musical performance out of an antique. I haven’t settled on a preamp yet for this "funk" system, but the McI MX 110z seems to ring a lot of bells- a bit of a sleeper since it isn’t a purist preamp only; has an FM tuner that could be a kick to use for a household system and looks like the build quality is stupendous. (Sympathetic restoration would be required as would a little tube rolling). As to multiple systems being a cheap substitute for an uber system, I have yet to hear any system --at any price- that didn’t have some area where the illusion collapsed. Again, I think it goes back to expectations- you can get a hell of a lot of musical enjoyment out of older gear if you don’t expect it to do everything well. And, I might just be surprised- one pretty well known guru of old Quads told me I might find myself spending more time listening to this system than my "main" system-- I’m certainly open to that possibility. I’m a gear head for sure, but I’d really rather spend the money on records at this point in my life than constantly search for the latest and greatest. These last few years have been very gratifying for precisely that reason- my main system was pretty well dialed in, I knew what it could and couldn’t do, and focused on buying records. Now everything is packed and crated. The movers arrive in a few hours. Yay! :) |
I am curious this morning and questioning this ML_2 that has been mentioned. There are two outputs coming out of my preamp. One goes to the RM10 which is run full out to the Quads. The second preamp line out goes to the Subs which are set to cutoff at 60 hz. I am trying to understand how the ML_2 mono pair, not having heard them, and just based on specs.....can get the job done. if I was using them I think I would need to use a higher cutoff on the subs? ************************************ From nyame’s post ML_2 Mono - Pair 25, 50,100 watts into 8, 4, and 2 ohms this implies to me and please tell me if I am wrong. 2..............4.............8............16..............32 OHMS 100..........50...........25..........12.5...........6.25 ML_2.....Output Watts. ***So only 6.25 watts available at 32 ohms***. The Quad 57 use approx 32 ohms to make 100 hz. See the graph that was posted earlier and here it is again. http://www.quadesl.com/graphics/quadGraphics/quad_impedance_graph.jpg Somebody explain this one to me please. *********************************************** Whart - would have loved to have met Peter Walker in person. Also John Bowers. Cheers Chris |
ct0517 1-09-2017 I am not sure that ohms law is the correct tool to unravel the mystery of the Quad 57 which present a capacitive load. My own experience is that very little power is required to reach acceptable music levels in a small/medium sized room. A friend of mine drove his quads with a 12 watt per channel solid state amp at bass levels which surprised me. Roger Modjeski had the same experience: "The RM-10 came into being in early 1990, when I noticed I rarely played music above a few watts on my Vandersteen 2C speakers. Later, I acquired a pair of the old QUAD electrostatics and achieved the same listening levels at even lower power." |
Hi nyame yeah, I get the fact that the Quad 57 presents a capacitive load. Atmasphere also made this clear earlier. Also I do remember now, similar discussions with the OTL manufacturer who made the 200 wpc OTL amps I was using with my Acoustats. btw - do your amps have a brand name ? So I have a recommendation to unravel this Quad 57 mystery. Nyame - you may send me your ML_2's. Kalali - you may purchase those Quad II's you linked earlier, and send to me also. or alternatively Whart; can send me his Quad II's while his Quad's are being restored. I promise to complete the shoot out with my RM10, post results here, and all equipment returned by April 1, or when boating season opens; whichever comes first. :^) How's that sound ? My LP assimilation project can wait . 8^0 ********** Bdp24 (Eric) Is it my correct understanding that Roger will only build RM9's now upon request, due to the cost ........or is this a myth too ? Cheers |
Chris (ct0517), I believe the RM-9 is no longer available, even as a special order. I could be mistaken however. Roger has relocated to the Bay Area, and appears to be more involved in his Audio Engineering school than in running Music Reference. He has a right-hand man still operating out of his old Santa Barbara location. |
ct0517 01-09-2017 " btw - do your amps have a brand name ?" " No. The amp I refer to as "my amp" was a joint project with four other friends. Five amps were built, each one slightly different. Four stereo versions, each with separate power supplies, while mine was built as mono-blocks. " Four of the amps were used to drive Quads, and one was used to drive a pair of Apogees. Three were built to produce 40 watts per channel, which was thought to be safer for the Quads. My friend with the Apogees actually used 16 output transistors per channel. This lead to heated arguments between us. I am no longer in possession of the amp. . |
This must be how people get hooked on drugs; following this discussion - with no interest in or prior knowledge of Quad speakers, then all of a sudden a pair of 57s come up for sale on the A'gone, completely restored in an incredible shape and affordably priced (for me), which can be paired with a Quad amp for sale on the opposite coast from a very reputable dealer, all a click away on my PayPal account. You guys are exactly what my parents warned me about.... |
kalali- i don't know what is on offer, but keep in mind that most of the original Quads do need some work, whether it is sympathetic restoration, repairing or replacing panels or both- you have to factor that in, unless the pair you are looking at have already been redone by a reputable restorer and not abused since. Kent McCollum of Electrostat Solutions is the person I'm having restore my old Quad loudspeaker. There was a double pair restored by him that a friend recently pointed me to for sale here, but that takes it to a whole other level.... |
A friend of mine runs his 3 stack ( 6 panels) with 6 Quad 2 mono amps these were made for the 57's and i have to say they sound wonderful, deep base fast and articulate and highs mids to die for. i recomend you get another set of 57's and some Quad 2 amps and enjoy. ok maybe extream but the Quad amps are made to run these speakers and do so very well. When you stack more then one set the base filles out alot and the panels just fill the whole room. |
glennewdick 1-09-2017 I have heard stacked Quads. AWESOME It was at " Sound Components " a high quality dealership in Miami. They had in the their showroom a system referred to as the " HQD" system. Stacked Quads, one Decca Ribbon tweeter and a 24" Harley sub-woofer housed in what looked like a coffin. But this is the first time I have heard of stacking 3 pairs of Quads. The funny thing is that when I had my Quads I was never aware, while listening to music, of any deficiency in the bass or treble. It was only when my brain kept telling me the bass did not go low enough and that the high frequencies were rolled off. |
nyame Why stop there ? https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/72/13/36/7213361b9e13336a168f4c0d98008eb3.jpg The funny thing is that when I had my Quads I was never aware, while listening to music, of any deficiency in the bass or treble. It was only when my brain kept telling me the bass did not go low enough and that the high frequencies were rolled off. My rooms are adjacent to one another. I can have the same music material running at the same time for fun. There are matrix 800’s in the adjacent room. I can tell you and so can others that there is no roll off in the HF’s with the RM10 and 100% functional Quads. The room treatments between the two rooms is also very different. Now the bass. ****************************************** Interview with Peter Walker Interviewer : For people who would like to use your speakers as mid-range and high-end reproducers - do you make suggestions about what they might add for moving- coil supplement below 100Hz, say? ***************************************** So it gives you 6 db more in the low end, and 3 db everywhere else. So it is not linear, and they still don’t play any lower than 45 hz . Peter Walker never heard today’s subwoofers. I had one occasion to hear stacked quads. Whether the setup or one of the panels was off a little, the magic I hear with two was lost. Seemed like a lot of effort and risk (multiple panels) _ to me at the time and the reason I pursued the sub route for db levels in the larger room. The secret for me in my space - to have the single pair panels elevated so they are 44 inches off the ground at the mid panel point. . ****************************************** @Kalali there is no such thing as a good deal with Quads. I would never buy any without seeing. and hearing them, along with the paperwork for when they were restored. Also removing the back panel to determine if they were a smoker. Would you buy a car that was owned by a smoker ? Cheers |
One great way to add bass to the 57 is with a pair of Magneplanar Tympani bass panels. They take a fair amount of floor space, however---each is 32"w x 6'h! That's what Harry Pearson mated with the m/t panels of the Infinity IRS to create his hybrid super-speaker. Another way is with the GR Research OB/Dipole Subwoofer, the world's only Open Baffle/Dipole Servo-Feedback Subwoofer. Very special, and very good with planar loudspeakers. But it's available only as a DIY kit. Worth the effort! |
bdp- Pearson also waxed over the maggie bass panels with the Crosby Quad 63. For one issue or so. And then he moved on. What always killed me about The Absolute Sound in the glory days was the promise of a follow up after a sneak preview, which never happened. I used to read those things religiously back in the day, along with an assortment of other stuff, Montcrieff, etc. |
Yeah Bill, Pearson had really high ambitions and aspirations for TAS, sometimes unachievable. Moncrieff had his own unique reviewing and writing style (which was to beat a subject to death, saying the same thing three different ways)---whatever happened to him? I think I heard he was in a very bad car wreck, and hasn’t been the same since. The same thing happened to the Bay Area’s leading Hi-Fi dealer in the 1970’s and 80’s, John Garland, who had the Wilson Audio WAMM speaker in his sound room! Another interesting mag was Art Dudley’s Listener, his publication before joining Stereophile. |
It has been quite a while since I heard the HQD system. That was a very expensive system in its day. I have heard, much more recently, re-built and heavily modified 57s done by a company called MyEmia. One of these pair of speakers came with an active crossover and was bi-amplified using dedicated EL34 tube amplifiers. The other pair, I cannot remember the specific details, but, I think it was a similar setup. Both pairs were able to deliver music at quite high volume levels and with fairly deep and impactful bass; this is NOT your father's Quads. It was hard to say if they could do all the other things that the 57s are known for because I heard them at two different DC -area Capital Audifests (2015 and 2016) and they were mainly demonstrated at exceedingly high volume levels. |
^^Thanks! If you were planning to use an SET on the 57, you would likely use the 16 ohm tap. You would get a similar proportionate spread in total output power. However, the total output power does not represent what you would actually hear in practice. This is because there is less energy in music at higher frequencies. So the amp does not need to make as much power at those frequencies. In practice it seems to work well- we have a lot of Quad customers. Since the M-60 can make far more power than the 57 can handle, many of our customers run the amp with less than the full complement of power tubes (which is easy to do with our amps). This would further limit the 4 ohm power but this does not seem to be a problem. Alternatively the 57s can be outfitted with a modern protection circuit which shuts down the amplifier power if it senses too much output voltage. FWIW, Quads and OTLs have a long history together going back to the 1950s. |
kalali hmmmm..... Sometimes...it is easier to turn the question around a little to get the right answer ? like..... How do you know if it is "not" the right type of amplification for these Quads? ******************************** 1) Are the Canon shots on 1812 Overture so real, that you believe you are actually seeing sparks in your room; which you believe are related to gun powder. Then it’s not the right amplification for these Quads. 2) When discussing the Speakers with the Amp manufacturer, and he/she can’t answer directly with facts, and says. "Oh, don’t worry your speakers won’t hurt our AMP" Then it’s not the right amplification for these Quads. 3) When you read about reviewers talking with Peter Walker and they ask. "For people who would like to use your speakers as mid-range and high-end reproducers - do you make suggestions about what they might add for moving-coil supplement below 100Hz, say? Then it’s not the right amplification for these Quads ? Quads play down to 45hz. You will have difficulty crossing over at 100hz. (just take my word on this one) 4) When you see someone’s setup and it looks like this. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-urEs8lxKAII/Upb0foVkinI/AAAAAAAAA-w/oNYggMVMkgQ/s1600/Quad+ESL-57+advertis.... Don’t even bother asking the question.....go to the next question. But first from the Quad Owners Manual "As a general rule radiation of sound waves from the front and rear of the speaker should be restricted as little as possible. While corners and positions closer to the wall should be avoided. A corner position is often necessary for other types of loudspeakers because it accentuates the low frequencies, but such a position for the Quad will both reduce the bass seriously and cause deterioration of middle frequencies due to standing waves." 5) If someone needs to use external tweeters with the speakers. Then it’s not the right amplification for these Quads. *************************************** Having a lot of fun here w u guys.........so cold outside but a lot nicer today.....still, .......boating season seems so far away. Cheers |
ct0517 1-11-17 " When discussing the Speakers with the Amp manufacturer, and he/she can’t answer directly with facts, and says. "Oh, don’t worry your speakers won’t hurt our AMP" Then it’s not the right amplification for these Quads " Soon after I purchased my first pair of quads I asked a Technician who was building amps on his dining table whether his amp would damage my Quads and he replied. " No, my amps are kind to loudspeakers." I was so impressed with his reply that we became good friends but I never tried his amp on my Quads. |
I ran Decca ribbons with my Quads and a small sub back in the early-mid '80s- could never get the thing to cohere completely, but as my late audio friend, Chuck Lamonica said, "You could kiss every note." I still have the Deccas--also in need of a restoration, but lower on my list. (I used Sequerra ribbons at one point too, and was able to talk to Dick S. to get replacement ribbons from him. He was very kind). The history behind this stuff is fascinating, as is the ability of equipment now 60+ years old to deliver a level of quality that in some ways, has not been duplicated. |
It's a bit tricky alright. Of course, you could put an air core inductor between the amp and the speaker to compensate, but that's tricky because it risks electronic resonances. Actually, it's quite unwise to attempt this unless you've made your own equipment to be bullet-proof. The alternative is to compensate upstream, at the preamp or the cartridge step-up transformer. The obvious thing is to increase the capacitance of the 75uS RIAA compensation, starting by say doubling capacitance. Let your taste be your guide. |
^^^^^ Electrocompaniet 250R. Rated output power 8 ohms 2 x 250 W 4 ohms 2 x 380 W 2 ohms 2 x 625 W 1 ohms 2 x 1100 W Power consumption (no load or signal) 230 W ************************** in comparison ************************** Music Reference RM10 2 x 35 watts Power consumption (no load or signal) 70 W The real story - imo - is how much the wattage difference grows between two when actually listening to music. And For those that do not have a dedicated space and can’t position speakers for the best High Frequency dispersion; Roger provides the "Quad Mod" feature on the RM10. This is a Switch which is designed to lift (boost the response) from 2khz - 20khz. It’s a 3 position switch ( +1, 0, +2 ) The +2 position adds a boost at 2khz of 2db - This, and I quote from the RM10 owners manual. "Brings the speakers to the brightness level of modern speakers." ********* So you see; you really can have your cake and eat it too. Especially if your wife will not allow you to place the speakers in the room as designed for the most detail. Gets the job done, but I have to admit.... Not as funky looking as some of those external tweeters I have seen hanging off the speakers. Hey......I used to hang the things off the speakers myself .....in the earlier days. My external tweeter versions had no dial or toggle switch, but used actual resistors that I could add and remove for the desired brightness. One benefit of those resistors hanging there; it made the speaker look more dangerous, so the wife would steer clear. Now if I can just train my kitty to stay away from them :^( |
Chris (ct0517), I believe the RM-9 is no longer available, even as a special order. I could be mistaken however. Roger has relocated to the Bay Area, and appears to be more involved in his Audio Engineering school than in running Music Reference. He has a right-hand man still operating out of his old Santa Barbara location. Sorry I am late to this thread and for the long post. I don’t hang out much here anymore, but I’d like to point out a few experiences of my own as a Quad ESL-57 user. First though I’d like to address the quote above. Music Reference is alive and well and in the Bay Area, the right hand man in Santa Barbara is no more and I have been helping Roger for the last year and a half. We also have a couple more folks working with us now. While the RM-9 is no more, we have a few RM-9SE’s left. Otherwise we are still producing RM-10 and RM-200 amps, and Roger has some new designs he is tinkering with. We also just introduced a prototype for an ESL Headphone Amp (that also plays dynamic and planar headphones and doubles as a preamp) and it was received really well. It will be in production shortly. Now to the ESL-57. When I purchased my set it was more out of curiosity, but once I heard them with my Atma-Sphere M-60 amps I was hooked. I also own an RM-10 and this little amp as previously mentioned is a great match for the speakers. I ran the ESL-57’s this way for about a year. Then Roger Modjeski introduced me to something new. Roger, while owning ESL-57’s, also built his own ESL speakers which we exhibited at THE Show Newport 2016. In this biamped configuration Roger uses what he calls the AirSpring Woofer system. It’s a woofer array of 2 or more woofers operating below 100 Hz. The low pass is a 4th order L/W crossover specially tweaked with a passive EQ circuit taking the panels down to 32 Hz (can go lower with the change of a resistor). A modified Class AB solid state amp with the crossover circuit built into it handles the woofers. The high pass is also L/W Riley and covers 100 Hz and above. We used an RM-200 and RM-10 on the top. In my setup I use a Luxman M-02 on the bottom and either the M-60s or RM-10 on the top. Instead of modding the Luxman to house the crossover I bought a used Beveridge RM-3 (designed by Roger) and made my own low pass and high pass cards (Roger still had some blank circuit boards for the RM-3 lying around). I use 4 woofers spread asymmetrically around the room (similar in theory to Duke LeJeurne’s Swarm concept) to eliminate bass nodes tune the set up. The RM-3 has bass and treble trim controls so those come in handy as well. Overall I can say this is very pleasing set up. I occasionally still use the ESL-57s stand alone to much enjoyment as well. An amazing speaker to say the least Disclaimer: Atma-Sphere dealer and I work with Music Reference RAM Tubes. |
Clio09 Hi Clio09 - interesting as I also own a Beveridge RM3. I am not using it right now. Would be interested to know what frequency you are crossing over at, and, if there is a difference in the Rm3's crossover box dial - high pass "level" setting, when used with the OTL M-60 versus the Push Pull RM-10. Cheers Chris |
One of the most memorable times I’ve heard a pair of single stack Quad 57’s, was with this little beauty from Nelson Pass, it gave them extension in the highs and a great taught extended bass with a midrange to die for. It impressed me so much I built a massive 100watt class-a water cooled version of it to drive double stack 57’s Kelly Decca ribbon 12khz up, and 2 x 24" Hartley woofers for bass from 70hz down. https://www.passdiy.com/project/amplifiers/the-pass-a-40-power-amplifier Cheers George |
George, Interesting you should point out that Pass design. About 20 or so years ago N.E.W. loosely based their DCA-33 amp off the A-40. It was about 25 watts Class A and used a separate battery (lead acid) power supply. I owned this amp along with their P-3 preamp which was built for them by Cary and essentially an SLP-50. I still scour the ads for a DCA-33. Nice little amp. Chris, The crossover is 100 Hz. The ESL-57s have a 90 Hz bump so you want to crossover above that. The 8" woofers Roger selected can be built in a small sealed enclosure which allows them to have a resonance frequency above 100 Hz that compliments the crossover setting. There is no significant difference in the RM-3 settings with either the amps. Sometimes I trim the high end a couple dB when running the RM-10 depending on the music. I run the M-60s with 4 tubes each channel so probably about 20 watts. I do use Speltz autoformers with them at 3x setting so that bumps up their power at some frequencies. |