mandryka
pfm Member
It sounds like something is way out of balance to me. I’d say I knew ESL63s pretty well, I’ve never owned a pair, but based on many listenings over the years they are amongst my favourite speakers. I’ve heard them mainly in a full-Quad environment or with valves in the mix somewhere, and I’m sure if I ever owned a pair I’d end up in that general area myself (likely a 909 power amp and my existing valve preamp).
I don’t know Primare at all, I’ve never knowingly heard anything by them, but some modern kit certainly sounds hyped-up, bright and forward to my ears rather than neutral. Quad ESLs will unquestionably point that out should it exist. The ESL63 is also not an especially easy speaker to drive, it is fairly inefficient and produces quite a demanding load. Quad amps of its era (405/2 and later) were designed for it and are personally what I would choose along with good quality thick copper speaker cables (Mogami etc). My preference is for valve preamps, but don’t overlook a full Quad system, I have heard ESL63s sound truly superb in the context of a comparatively humble 34/405-2. Just open, natural and transparent, not ruthlessly analytical. At that time Quad knew exactly what they were doing IMHO.
There’s something attractive about your principle here - that the speaker should be tried with the amp used to design it. I’d like to try it with my Spendors, but I’ve never found out the amps they used when they were making the SP1. And neither of us, as far as I know, have tried it with JR149s. There’s a NAP 120 on eBay, but too beat up for me.
That being said, in the case of the ESL63, I think that you can do better than the early quads, I’ve never heard a 909.