The quad 988,989 is essentially the same speaker as the 63,they all use the delay line design,cheap circuit board and electronics,I know I have taken them apart.Quad is now owned by a chinese company,but they are still made in England.They have never been a benchmark in rugged design,but the sound when properly set up is beautiful,I presently own the 989 .I had some problems with burning holes in the panels of one speaker I sent it back to qs&d twice and then finaly was given a new speaker,Randy by the way was very helpful in repairing and then getting me the new speaker.That was over a year ago and I have not had any problems since.Some people will tell you the new 989 quads are brighter, darker,have flabby bass,dont do this dont do that blah blah blah,point being they take time to match equipment,room and proper room treatment to get them right but when they are they are awesome.I know people who have had problems with sound labs also, but once they worked out all the bugs they wouldnt own anything else ,and the same can be said for quads.You just have to decide if your willing to go through the effort to get there.By the way the problem with mine was somewhere in the clamp circuit,possible faulty capacitor.I would like to hear from others about what they have experienced with equipment matching ,room treatments etc.to get the new model quads to work there best.
