What speaker to replace ESL 63?

Detlof: How broken-in were the P-10's you listened to? The Piega's I have did not become magical until about the 400th hour. They sounded real good out of the box, but improved by a wide margin with break-in.

I do not own the Quad's, but listened to them recently at a friend's house who compared my Piega's with her Quads. She agreed with me and bought a pair of P-10's.

Jtinn: You pose a good question. I cannot truly say. but it was surely below 400 hours. The Quads were broken in. I know, because they were mine, schlepped along for the trial. You may well have the answer here, for the P-10 sounding a bit rough in the midrange. Cheers, Detlof

I heartily second the motion on the Harbeth Compact 7, which, although not easy to find-you may have to purchase from the Canadian distributor-is worth the effort. And it will keep you at the lower end of the price range you mention. In its objectives this extremely well-constructed speaker comes from essentially the same school as some of the greats, e.g., Quad (although it's not an electrostatic)& Spendor. The company, which is primarily in the studio monitor field, has been around for a while.

Jtinn, I respect your opinion of what you heard vs the ESL-63, but I must state as matter of fact, that there is no speaker on this planet, that I have ever listened to, including Infinity IRS-Vs, that I can honestly say is any better than the Quad in the mids.(Is that a run on sentence?)If anyone should make the claim that xyz speaker stomps the Quad in the midrange,I would recommend that they attend a chamber music group concert, to recalibrate their ears to the accurate portrayal of the live illusion. (Jtinn, I am not referring to you here) The US monitor version does not seem to have the high panel failure rate that the earlier ESL-63s did. The sound is also quite a bit better on these. Audiokinesis, you are indeed a dealer with accurate advice, and without question integrety. The ESL-63, no longer being available to sell, you told the truth as your ears hear it, not your wallet. Say Class Act Duke!

I am aficionado of chamber music and lied and I have not heard until now other speaker capable of rendering all the nuances, tonal shadings and emotions ( joy, anger, sadness) contained in the various interpretatons of barytone and soprano voices as the Quads do. Listen to the various performances of Schubert lieders recorded during thirty years by Dieskau and Schwarzkopf.This latter is one of the most difficult voice to render in a soud system (and impossible to render from a CD support).