Quad Listener Contemplating Horns

Hi Gang.Didn't mean to end my post as I accidently pushed the submit while attemting to preview my post. Anyway, about 6 years ago I acquired a 100 year old school house in the country with 4 large classrooms and a large gymnasium. The main classroom is a huge room [34ft x 27 ft with 16 1/2 ft ceilings] Thinking this would make a great room for setting up a system that would accomodate both music and movies, I decided I would renovate [a whole nother story] and move some equipment into the room. Started with my acoustat 2+2's,then the sound lab A-1's, both driven by an ARC sp-10 mk2 and Atma-sphere 2.2 Mk2's.While very good at average listening levels, Unfortunately neither speaker would pressurize the room. Well OK then... we'll try some boxes. Started with the proac reponse 3a...nope, on to response 4,close but no cigar. In came a pair of vandy 5's, better but still no cigar. Well maybe some subs with them, well that just made things even more difficult to get things right. A couple of musician friends suggested the big Klipschorns. Yanked a pair in from a old business associate.... now we where getting closer, but a touch shrill and a little shouty when approaching near live spl's not to mention the bottom octave that was MIA. Then hauled in a pair of altec a-7's...better still,great bass punch and dynamics but after living with e-stats in my home for most of my adult life and working with altecs at live gigs and nightclubs for many years,well it just wasn't the voice for me. Enter the big 300lb Tannoy Westminsters. Now these exhibit none of the colour of the others, as a matter of fact they remind me very much of the voice of the quad 57 whereby the midband is smooth and coherent with a speed thats akin to an Estat on steriods. Sound great at very low volumes too. Sound great with both quality tube amps as well as big solid state stuff. Certainly worth the trouble finding a pair to audition. Mind you,that said: I have never heard a pair in a small room and suspect they may be difficult to set up and adjust in smallish rooms. Although the westminsters are revered buy many Asian music lovers, most are made to order for the Asian market and their rooms are typically smaller than ours.

Enter the big 300lb Tannoy Westminsters

The only time I heard these were in Switzerland at the home of Mr. Breuer, the wonderful builder of Breuer tonearms and cartridges. He loved the Tannoy and voiced his products with them.

Man, I am so happy I started this thread. You guys are bringing back memories. A-7s. Tannoys! Love Lacee's response, but which is it, parallel or series? (Somebody on this site is offering a double pair of Quads with the original Levinson frames that include a branded 'knob' with the Levinson imprint. How funky is that!)

So, I placed a few calls to known suppliers. (God this sounds illicit). Seems like my timing is good. Everybody is on their way to CES. (This used to happen to me alot when I drank. For some reason, I always needed a drink on election day, when the bars were closed).

One of my cohorts urged me to listen to the Consonance amp configured with 211's, in conjunction with the Avantgarde Duos. Reminded him of the early AudioNote amplifier.

I'll have to do some listening before I draw any conclusions for myself. But, the input here has so far been invaluable, as well as fun to read. I guess I'm looking for an alternative to the Quad-based system, for those times when I want to hear a certain 'aliveness' to the music, rather than delicacy, detail and nuance.

Series parallel wiring with stacked Quad 57.
Positive from amp to positive of top Quad speaker. Negative of top Quad Speaker to positive of bottom Quad, negative of bottom Quad to negative of Amp.You require one long positive lead ,one long negative lead of equal length and one shorter jumper.Again the jumper goes from the upper Quad negative to the lower Quad positive. This is how to wire when you stack the Quads bottom to bottom so that the upper Quad is in the standard orientation and the Quad below it is inverted, (the top of bottom Quad is now at the bottom of the stack). This will make your amp see the same load as 1 pair of Quads 57.It worked for me.

Thanks for clarifying, Lacee. Sorry for my ignorance.