Current feeling on stacked quads?

Ah Yes !-- One of the truly great Combos-Det--your nostalgia bought tears to my eyes!
I had a beautifully finished Stacked pair from Radio People in HKG also with the T1 Ribbons and a 24"Hartley via the Jon Curl Symmetery X-Over.
Absolutely stunning.

What's more musical and fullfilling out there today-- frankly damn all!

Mot--go for them --if you can find them at reasonable price.

Good Listening,

Des W

Ah yes, as an x-over I used one from Mark Levinson, the man.... and yes again, as Des said, go for it! Even today, unless you want earsplitting sound levels, there is hardly anything better.....

How do stacked Quad ESL 56's compare to full range Soundlabs? I thought this might be a difficult question?

Chris

Chris,
With the full range Sound Labs you have the same lack of coloration, the immediacy, the impeccable rendition of transients, the wonderful midrange of the Quads. It is all there. Furthermore you can play much louder, have a wider sweet spot and a far better bass rendition. Placement of instruments is dead right, the soundstage huge with the right kind of software. Also you will have to do much less fiddling around to get the proper coherency between bass, middle and highs, compared to the stacked 57s, with say, super-tweeters and added low end woofers. However to make the sound Labs shine, you have to invest more into good amplification. For both speakers I would say, SS is a no no for good sound. The big Sound Labs are not all that easy to drive. They thrive on OTLs, like the 220watt Atmas or -more conventionally - on the VTL Siegfrieds in pentode mode with their huge power reserves. I also used a 60watter on them with good effect, but then you would lose some of the dynamics this speaker is capable of. Another advantage by the way, over the 57: Dynamics wasn't their strong point, although stacking them did bring noticeable improvement also there.

Detlof, in my experience stacked ESL 57's have better dynamics than Maggie MG II or III's. It's not that the Quads could play as loud as the Maggies: they don't. But the Quads have a bigger dynamic range and are better in reproducing tiny dynamic swings. Do you agree with this? That was one of the reasons I chose the Soundlab over Maggie MG 20.1. If solid state amplifiers are not first choice with the Soundlabs, why do I see many pictures from home audio systems and systems at shows in where big Soundlabs are being matched with... (the very solid state) Parasound JC-1's? Is this an exception to the rule?

Chris