I am a former user of Quad 57s and 63s and currently own Apogee Duetta Signatures but the speakers I am listening to now are SP-1s. The S5e is the product of a different design team entirely. I bought Spendor originally because of a review in STUDIO SOUND, a British pro sound mag, which compared the 57s and Spendor BC-1s and found them very similar. This was in 1970. I was a Quad dealer for 15 years and a Spendor dealer for 16 with considerable overlap. Both of them have been in wide use as broadcast monitors[ why the BC-1 was designed] and by classical recording engineers. They share an uncanny ability to get the timbre of the music right. They do not play especially loud or deep but are very accurate. The large speakers mentioned have their own set of virtues but do not sound like the Quad. I confess that any similarity with the Maggies elude me. I have never been able to stand them. |
01-16-09: Acoustat6
"the acoustic ambience of a panel that radiates forwards and backwards (nice for chamber, church or low level classical music)-"
Yes, electrostats (or any dipole for that matter?) are bad bad bad bad bad for any other type of music particualy rock, progressive, symphonic, punk, be bop jazz, straight ahead jazz, electronic, dance, orchestral etc, well you get the idea. I am not even sure why they make these things. Thankfully I like Ann Murry, Carpenters, and churches without organs music.
Acoustat6, Can you tell us more about your extensive experience with electrostats, planar, dipole, etc. speakers? My speakers can play, with authority, everything you throw at them, of course except anything bellow 30hz. I have also heard non-boxed speakers play loud and well anything from rock, punk, symphonies, ... |
the spendors and many other speakers having drivers in cabinets have cabinet colorations.
the differences between spendors, proacs, rogers, etc., and quad 57s are huge. while there is no explanation for taste, i find it surprising that anyone who loves the virtues of quad 57s can appreciate a cone design. i have yet to hear one that i would want to own, especially after listening to quads.
i recently reviewed a decent monitor speaker, using a modified heil tweeter. they were no match for quads. |
Your loss. Its wonderful to find someone with so refined a taste that he can tolerate only one kind of speaker. I like the Quads, but they have faults of their own. I am amazed that you would have expected the Heil tweeter to sound good. I remember when a store in Chicago sold 14 pair of the original Heil speakers and got every one of them back in trade in a short period. I will call it to your attention that when the European national radio networks stopped using Quads as monitors they replaced them with Spendors. Of course their only concern was fidelity to the original sound , not maintaining their pose as an audio guru. |
most "box" speakers sound "boxy", whereas panel speakers do not have box calibrations.
i guess one man's trash is another's treasure.
for the record, i could live with any panel speaker, from magnepan to martin logans, apogees, audiostatic, analysis audio, and other panels. cones have colorations which i find annoying. |
