Quad ESL owners question

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.

Less well suited to some of the heavier genres that tend to be heard at higher SPL's but definitely not "bad bad bad bad".

ATC Active Speakers are very Quad like.

Sound Labs

as a quad esl owner, previous quad 63 owner, magnepan owner, previous tympany owner and hybrid infinity owner, i can say that i would never be satisfied with any speaker but another panel speaker.

i could easily live with some of the martin logans, the apogee duetta signature, the infinity servo statics and possibly (i'm not sure), the piega c 10. i'm not sure about the piega because it is a hybrid.

my 2nd speaker is a pair of magnepan 1.6s. the esls and magnepan sound similiar.

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.