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Old Quad ESL's - worth a listen ?

I didn't have the space for stacked 57s - I couldn't even see out of the window. But I was young and foolish. The best music I ever heard from a hifi was Weather Report "Birdland" through the 57s, sitting pretty much right in front of them. It was a religious experience. I think at the time I had a Decca Gold cartridge in Hadcock arm on a big Thorens turntable, valve phono stage with heaters supplied by a car battery, all soldered from the arm to the RCA outputs, McIntosh valve amp. Nothing since has ever sounded like that. Not even remotely like it.
 
need loads of room which it sounds like you don't have. Expensive to own as they need regular servicing. Crackle and rustle free does not mean that they are in good working condition they may well have some panels quieter than others giving a lop sided sound stage. No way they are worth £400 unserviced.

Rgds
Stuart
 
I have OTA ‘57s too. They are my main speakers and sound superb, with their own limitations. They are more suited to live music and yes they can do the church organ quite convincingly. Placement is everything. You need a large and long room.
 
I would love to find a pair at UK second hand prices, they are rare here in the US and command quite a hefty sum.
 
Well I didn't win the ones I was bidding on, by just over £1.
How annoying, and largely down to dodgy Internet and me forgetting to up my highest bid.
Ah well, maybe it's for the best as I need to sell rather than buy atm..
 
steveinspain said:
Well I didn't win the ones I was bidding on, by just over £1.
How annoying, and largely down to dodgy Internet and me forgetting to up my highest bid.
Ah well, maybe it's for the best as I need to sell rather than buy atm..
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You don't know that you lost out by a £1 as that is only the next bid, the winner could have had another couple hundred quid on them for all you know, console yourself with that ha!
 
Excellent with classical and 50s jazz, not so sure about 57s with other styles of music. A friend runs a single 57 with a Quad II mono amp with a Leak mono tuner. Radio 3 and 4 great, everything else not so great.

As others say you need space around them for the best effect.
 
Jono_13 said:
Excellent with classical and 50s jazz, not so sure about 57s with other styles of music. A friend runs a single 57 with a Quad II mono amp with a Leak mono tuner. Radio 3 and 4 great, everything else not so great.

As others say you need space around them for the best effect.
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Thanks Jono,

The funny thing is that I have had completely lost the urge to change my radio set up and here we are five years on almost since the old Tough-Line was recapped in pre-Covid times.

I also happen to agree completely that the set-up does fail at pop music as broadcast on VHF/FM. I think this may be simply that the arrangement is immensely revealing of overdone dynamic compression, and the results are barely listenable. That very revealing nature suits recordings that are meant to present natural timbres on classical instruments. The ESL is one of the few speakers I know that not only works well on piano recordings but easily will detail the differences between piano makers. Say the tones of Steinway, Bechstein and Pleyel, which are easy to hear even through older recordings. Schnalbel playing his favoured Bechstein in Beethoven or Edwin Fischer playing the same music on a Steinway [German not US] or Cortot playing on the utterly different French Pleyel And that from the 78 era, let alone the the LP or CD eras.

Such subtlety is hardly needed for an electronic keyboard!

One thing I would like to do is somehow find a really competent pre-amp that has something like this: Play both stereo channels summed, or play from one channel only, and thirdly to be able to mix the two channels variably so the net mono signal would anything from 100 per cent left through 50/50 to 100 per cent right channel. This would allow optimal playing of even the most problematic stereo recordings as mono. It would need a minimum of three line-level inputs for radio, my digital replay and my already RIAA corrected LP source.

The trouble is that the likely candidates often fail miserably on my mono requirements, and none are remotely within budget!

For the Opening Poster. I would say that everyone should listen to ESLs at least once, though I am just as sure that they are not the speaker type for everyone. But if they fill the bill they can become your forever speaker model! I am not convinced by stacking them. It is impressive, but to my mind actually skews the scale of natural instruments. Segovia's guitar simply became huge in a way that is not correct, but on larger scale music, ever getting a large enough scale really is not easy on any domestic replay. Multiple Naim DBLs might get there, if you like their presentation. I find DBLs are quite problematic nowadays.

Best wishes from George
 
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